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PAUL OF TARSUS. 



I 




Paul of Tarsus: 



AJSr INQUIRY INTO THE TIMES AND 

THE GOSPEL OF THE APOSTLE 

OF THE GENTILES. 



/^^^ 



By a graduate. 




BOSTON: 
ROBERTS BROTHERS. 

1S72. 

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< 



Press of 

JOHN WILSON AND SON, 

UTambrilise. 



PREFACE. 



'T^HE author of the following pages has for some 
time past attempted, out of the materials which 
were at his disposal, to construct for himself a sketch 
of the times in which St. Paul lived, of the religious 
systems with which he was brought in contact, of the 
doctrine which he taught, and of the w^ork which he 
ultimately achieved. It seemed that some interest 
might be felt by others in these researches, and they 
have therefore been published. 

The influence which St. Paul has exercised over the 
Christianity which completely leavens modern civiliza- 
tion is wider and more lasting than that which has 
been wielded by any other man. One other person, 
St. Augustine of Hippo, has had a similar, but a far 
less energetic authority. If the contents of this book 
enable the reader to realize more adequately what w\as 
the social and religious condition of the world in which 
St. Paul lived, and what it was that he sought to teach, 
tlie immediate purpose of the publication will be sat- 
isfied. 

The writer has taken for granted that the writings 



VI PREFACE. 

ascribed to St. Paul are genuine. The evidence which 
has been alleged against the authenticity of the Pas- 
toral Epistles, and of some among the other letters, 
does not seem stronsj enouoh to render these writinsrs 
suspicious. On the other hand, the Epistle to the 
Hebrews could not have come from St. Paul. These 
epistles are the principal, almost indeed the only, source 
from which to construct the Pauline theology. 

Among the Scriptures of the New Testament is a 
work which gives an account of the doings of some 
among the Apostles, and particularly of Peter and 
John, Barnabas and Paul. It seems that this book is 
either a collection of extracts from some very copious 
archives, or that it contains the fragments of a compre- 
hensive work. Such a compilation may have been 
made because only portions of the original survived, or 
the book may be an ancient Eirenicon, intended to 
prove a substantive harmony between the tenets of the 
Jewish Christians, and those of the Gentiles to whom 
Paul imparted his gospel. The latter opinion seems to 
be confirmed by the manifest parallelism between the 
recorded doings and sayings of Peter and of Paul. It 
does not indeed follow, because the facts are selected, 
that the naiTative is not to be depended on. But if 
any one wishes to get an insight into the causes of that 
strife which was waged between the Apostle of the 
Gentiles and the heads of Jewish Christianity, he will 
examine the Epistles to the Galatians and to the Ro- 



PREFACE. vil 

mans, rather than the history of the controversy in the 
Acts of the Apostles. 

It has been found necessary, in giving quotations 
from the Pauline epistles, to deviate from the words 
of the authorized version. It is well known that the 
translation of this part of the New Testament is fre- 
quently unsatisfactory, and is sometimes unintelligible. 
It is hoped that these deviations from the words of a 
version which is justly regarded as one of the noblest 
exemplars of the English language will be justified by 
the assistance which they give the reader in compre- 
hending the scope of St. Paul's words. 

It will be found that the writings of St. Paul are 
treated as human compositions only. It may be the 
case, as popular Christianity avers, that the religious 
sentiments of the writers whose works are contained in 
the Scriptures are too exalted for the unassisted powers 
of man, and that the manifestation of this peculiar 
genius was confined to a few favored individuals. Such 
an opinion, partly dictated by the reverence which is 
naturally felt towards the founders of a religion, partly 
due to the energy with which controversy has hallowed 
the authorities from which it draws its arguments, is 
not countenanced by the language of the New Testa- 
ment. However transcendent may be the value of 
these writings, it must at least be admitted, that neither 
the Jewish nor the Christian Scriptures speak with the 
egotism of the Koran. 



Vlll PREFACE. 

Whatever may be the power which guided the writers 
of the New Testament, the student of Primitive Chris- 
tianity must needs, unless he merely intends to declaim 
on a foregone conclusion, free himself from preconceived 
opinions and traditions, and strive to look on the teach- 
ing of such an Apostle as Paul from the stand-point of 
a listener at Thessalonica, Athens, or Corinth, and to 
whom the message of the new religion has come for 
the first time. He must not merely take a lajnnan's 
view of Christianity, or, in other words, consider his 
subject as one does who has no professional sympathies, 
and no professional antipathies ; but he must, if possi- 
ble, divest himself of those habits and associations 
which pervert a critical judgment. It is not too much 
to say, that the defence of popular Christianity is con- 
stantly irrational and inconsistent, while the attack on 
it is as frequently peevish and angry. If the con- 
tents of this volume are written in a different spirit, 
the author hopes to have given some assistance towards 
the solution of that far larger question, — By what 
means, and under what pressure, have the dogmas of 
later Christianity been developed from the Pauline 
original ? 



PAUL OF TAESUS. 



CHAPTER I. 

TUDAISM was the cradle of Christianity, and Juda- 
^ ism very nearly became its grave. The iirst teach- 
ers of Christianity were all Jews, and were deeply 
imbued by the traditions and observances with which 
the restored Israelites had overlaid the generous teach- 
ing of the great prophets. These refinements were 
partly glosses on the Law, partly additions to those 
tenets which constituted the Judaism of the monarchy. 
From such traditions and observances many of the Jew- 
ish converts tore themselves with infinite difficulty and 
pain, while not a few of them were willing to sacrifice 
the last command of Christ to the urgent claims of the 
Mosaic ritual. From so serious a peril one man saved^ 
Christianity; and this at a time when the words and 
acts of Christ had been recorded in no written gospel. 
The career of no man has ever produced such lasting 
effects on the world's history as that of St. Paul. But, 
in attempting to estimate the work which he did, it is 
essential that we should know what was the material 
with which he had to deal, and what were the agencies 



10 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

which assisted and thwarted him. And, first, for his 
countrymen. 

About a century before that memorable day on 
which Paul of Tarsus was making a journey to 
Damascus, and was just, in sight of the city whose 
antiquity was such that even the great ancestor of the 
Hebrews had visited it, a trial was going on at Rome. 
The person inculpated was a member of that distin- 
guished family which appears in the earliest recorded 
memories of the Republic, and which is said to have 
been continued to within a century of the present time. 
A proconsul of the Roman province of Asia had been 
accused of extortion. He had been praetor of the 
city during Cicero's consulship and the maturity of 
Catiline's conspiracy, and had given great assistance 
towards detecting and frustrating the plot. He had 
obtained his province in order to recruit his fortunes, 
for Rome rewarded her officials by lucrative provincial 
appointments. The power of these governors was 
almost absolute. In order, however, to provide a check 
against the wrongs which power commits when a ruler 
is hard and greedy, the central government at Rome 
made these officials liable to a trial for extortion, and, 
on conviction, inflicted the severest penalties which the 
Roman law had enacted against the misdemeanors of 
its aristocracy. 

Lucius Valerius Flaccus was acquitted, as we are in- 
formed, through the eloquence and interest of Cicero. 
The charge of extortion was seldom brought home to 
the accused, even when the guilt of the governor was 



THE TRIAL OF A ROMAN PROCONSUL. 11 

notorious. The luxury and waste of the Roman nobles 
were sustained by the spoils of the provinces. In 
course of time these nobles employed their ill-gotten 
gains in civil war, and were divided into hostile camps. 
At last, and of necessity, " the settled world," as men 
called it, came under the despotism of a single ruler, 
who was garrisoned by an imperial guard. The settled 
world found that its material interests were benefited 
by the change, for the rule of a single despot is more 
tolerable than that of a legion of despots. But the 
moral interests of the world suffered utter havoc, while 
the two remedies of moral evil, resistance and patience, 
were seeking for their opportunities. Resistance was 
hopeless, and patience at length created a new society 
on the ruins of the old. But this reconstruction was 
effected four centuries after the trial of Flaccus. 

Among the charges brought against the proconsul, 
was that of his having forbidden the exportation of 
certain moneys which had been collected by the Asiatic 
Jews on behalf of their metropolis, — Jerusalem. Those 
among the Jews who had settled outside the Land of 
Promise, held themselves bound to regularly transmit 
their first-fruits to the Temple, as well as to obey the 
ceremonial law of Moses. This voluntary tribute, paid 
by many votaries, was the source of these sacred 
treasures which Pompey spared, and Crassus pillaged. 
There is no doubt that the wealth of the Jewish hier- 
archy was great. It is probable that much of that op- 
ulence for which Herod the Great was conspicuous, and 
which he employed in conciliating leading men at 



12 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

Rome, and in constructing fortifications throughout 
Judea, was derived from the spontaneous revenue 
which was paid by the expatriated Jews. 

As i^roconsul of Asia, Flaccus had impounded this 
gold of the Jews, had probably appropriated it. The 
act had given great offence to the Jewish race, espe- 
cially to those at Rome ; for Cicero even accuses the 
prosecutor of having designedly selected the court for 
holding the trial. It was erected, he says, in a quarter 
of the city where the compatriots of these Asiatic Jews 
could make themselves felt by their clamor, and baf3.e 
the defenders of the inculpated satrap. This region, 
we are told by Philo, was on the left bank of the Tiber, 
and near those gardens of Ceesar which were bestowed 
by the great dictator on the Roman people. It was 
reckoned to contain a colony of 8,000 Jews in the time 
of Augustus. But Cicero appeals to what was deemed 
policy in those days, and for many a century after. 
"The conduct of Flaccus," he says, "in prohibiting the 
exportation of the precious metals is patriotic, is admira- 
ble. It is a policy which I have often recommended to 
the senate, and which the senate has adopted at my 
recommendation. These Jews collect treasure from all 
parts of the empire, from Italy itself, and pour it into 
Jerusalem." The notion that money is wealth was a 
maxim with Roman statesmen. 

The trivial and ordinary parts of human society, at 
any epoch of its history, attract no attention, find no 
record'. The annalist merely narrates that which strikes 
his imagination, rouses his curiosity, is unhke his ordi- 



JEWS OF TEE DISPERSION. 13 

nary experience. To us, however, that which a Roman 
of Cicero's day found commonplace would be, if we 
could recall it, profoundly interesting : that which he 
thought worthy of record is only that which history is 
eternally repeating, — the ambition of great men, and 
the means and acts by which that ambition is satisfied 
or disappointed. What if we could reproduce pre- 
cisely the social condition of that Rome in which 
Cicero was spealdng, and the Asia which Flaccus had 
pillaged and provoked ! The fancy of Eastern nations 
is always dreaming of some city which has been sud- 
denly crystallized into a perpetual sleep, and in which 
the traveller, if he could only reach it, would see what 
were the doings of those primeval races whose 'empire 
has long since passed away. And yet the East changes 
slowly. The Damascus of to-day does not perhaps dif- 
fer much from the Damascus which Abraham visited, 
differs hardly at all, except in its magnitude and pros- 
perity, from the city where Paul lodged in the. "street 
which is called Straight, which was in the principal 
boulevard of the town. We in the Western world, 
who exult in change, and progress, and growth, are 
very far removed from those facts, the knowledge of 
which would allow us to reconstruct the social state 
which constituted the cradle of our faith. The East is 
the best school in which to study the outline of that 
civilization which is still an antiquarian puzzle, but the 
interest in which is perennial, the historical reconstruc- 
tion of which is a necessary condition to the compre- 
hension of the Christian Origines. 



14 PAUL OF TABS US, 

The Ghetto of Republican Rome helped to swell the 
noisy crowd at the Aurelian ascent, where, the orator 
tells us, the clamor was such that the accused person 
was placed at a great disadvantage. On this occasion 
the Roman Jews collected in great numbers, in order to 
support the charge against the rapacious proconsul who 
had forbidden them to send their pious offerings to the 
temple at Jerusalem ; and they exhibited a formidable 
organization. 

The Roman nobles treated native religions with tol- 
eration, — evea with favor. This attitude was partly 
due to the contempt with which a conquering race 
viewed the faith of the vanquished, whose superstition 
was beneath the notice of an irresistible power, whose 
gods had become the subjects of the Capitoline Jove, 
when the nation had submitted to the senate and peo- 
ple of Rome.' It was partly due to that habit which 
the Romans had of identifying the theocracy of foreign 
nations with their own, and by which, for example, they 
acknowledged Jehovah Sabaoth, under the name of 
Jupiter Sabazius. But it was still more due to policy. 
Rome wished to make subjects, not to collect converts. 
Occupied with the business of constructing an empire, 
the Roman statesman would have considered it a mere 
waste of force to combat the religious opinions of the 
dependencies, when his primary business was to ensure 
their political subjection. It^ indeed, religious fanati- 
cism was enlisted on the side of the combatant, the 
Roman showed no more mercy to the religious than he 
did to the political sentiment. But, during the growth 



THEIR HABITS. 15 

of that empire, Rome only once had to fight with 
fanatics, and then slie found the struggle fierce enough 
to task her greatest energies. It was only a fragment 
of the Jewish race which fought against Vespasian and 
Titus. Even this portion was split up into bitter fac- 
tions, and was disorganized by furious enmities. The 
efiect, however, of the last Jewish war was prodigious, 
and the conquerors marked their sense of the impulses 
which gave force to the struggle, by razing the site of 
the Holy City, by proscribing the sacred Name, and by 
rigorously banishing the Jews from Palestine. 

The slight sketch of Jewish nationality which Cicero 
gives us is reproduced several generations later by 
Tacitus, and hinted at by Juvenal. The historian ex- 
plains the extraordinary vitality and growth of the 
race by the intense home sentiment of the Jews. To 
be childless was a reproach in Israel, and few Jews 
were unmarried. As is the manner of Roman writ- 
ers, when they comment on races whom they despise 
or dislike, Tacitus speaks coarsely of the Jewish tem- 
perament and creed, while he admits the loyalty of 
the race to the metropolis of its nation, notes its 
abhorrence of any anthropomorphic religion, and refers 
to the sedulous care with which the Jew fenced ofi" his 
domestic life from any intercourse with the people 
among which he sojourned. 

The Jews of antiquity, like their modern descend- 
ants, always dwelt in cities, forming a separate com- 
munity in some well-defined locality or ghetto. This 
was and is inevitable. It was only in Palestine that 



16 FA UL OF TARSUS. 

they were agriculturists. Their law forbade the use 
of certain kinds of animal food. Even that flesh which 
was permitted them had to be carefully prepared, and 
had to be legally healthy. Under certain restrictions 
and limitations, their great Lawgiver permitted mixed 
marriages, and the practice of the ancient Jews was 
even less rigid than the rule of the Mosaic code. The 
tenderest narrative in the Old Testament, after the 
story of Joseph and his brethren, is the Eastern idyl of 
Ruth. This pastoral tells us how a daughter of the ac- 
cursed Moab — of a race which was to be perpetually 
excluded from the congregation — married into the first 
family of the tribe of Judah, after having claimed the 
right of a widow against her husband's next of kin. 
The great King of Israel married the daughters of 
Canaanite chieftains. The harem of his magnificent 
son was filled with women who worshipped strange 
gods. The Song of Songs is reputed to be, in its pri- 
mary meaning, an epithalamium on the marriage of 
Solomon with an Egyptian princess. In the story of 
Esther, a Jewish maiden is taken into the seraglio of 
the Persian monarch, and advanced to the post of prin- 
cipal wife, without any demur on the part of her near- 
est male relative and guardian. But after the captivity 
a more rigorous rule prevailed. In the days of Ezra 
and Nehemiah — the Puritans of Jewish history — we 
read that all mixed marriages were proscribed, that 
those who contracted them were excommunicated, and 
that the offspring of these marriages were deprived of 
civil rights. At the beginning of our era, the Jew 



I 



TEE JEWS OF ALEXANDRIA. 17 

•would marry no woman who was not of his own race. 
It seems that Jewish women did occasionally contract 
marriage with Gentiles. Paul vouches for the piety of 
Eunice and Lois, — the mother and grandmother of 
Timothy ; but the father of this disciple was a Greek ; 
and it is plain that these pious women did not think 
the ceremonial law, represented by its most obligatory 
and universal rite, binding on the child whom they so 
carefully instructed in the Jewish scriptures. 

The most important colony of Jews was that of 
Alexandria. It dates from the commencement of the 
voluntary dispersion, and is coeval with the foundation 
of the city. We are told that, after the destruction of 
Tyre, the Macedonian conqueror marched on Jerusa- 
lem, that he was welcomed by the high priest, and in- 
formed of the success which the prophet Daniel had 
predicted for Greek valor and discipline. It is added 
that Alexander treated high priest and temple with 
scrupulous respect. There were Jews who accom- 
panied his army, who refused to pollute their hands 
with the work of rebuilding the temple of Belus, who 
were instruments in the vengeance which the captive 
Psalmist imprecated on the daughters of Babylon. So 
Jews were enrolled among the colonists of Afexandria. 

The successors of Alexander continued the favor 
wiiich he showed to the Jews. Seleucus gave them the 
freedom of citizens in Antioch and Seleucia, and 
favored those banking establishments which they set np 
in the principal towns of Asia Minor. But the Lagid 
dynasty established in Egypt' treated them with the 



18 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

greatest confidence. The com trade of Alexandria 
fell almost entirely into their hands at a very early 
period. Two Jews were the captains of the household 
troops under Philadelphus, and another Jew farmed its 
revenues under Evergetes. The amiies of Philometor 
were led by Jewish generals. The settlers were 
wealthy, and, as was to be expected fi-ora the callings 
which they followed, unpopular. Hence the later 
monarchs of the dynasty occasionally sacrificed them 
to the anger or alarm of the Alexandrian mob. 
. These Jews followed and were faithful to the fortunes 
of Caesar, who rewarded them by confirming them in 
all their rights and privileges, and by allowing them to 
elect a ruler or chief magistrate over themselves, under 
the title of Alabarch. In the same way, according to 
Benjamin of Tudela, the Abassid Caliphs of Bagdad 
permitted the Jews of Central Asia, in the twelfth cen- 
tury, to elect a chief of their own race, under the title 
of the Prince of the Captivity. The nation throve, 
and in the days of Tiberius it was reckoned, according 
to Philo, that Alexandria contained 200,000 out of the 
million Jewish settlers in Egypt. The same authority 
infoi-ms us that two out of the five wards into which 
the city was divided were entirely occupied by Jews. 

Many troubles fell on the Alexandrian Jewry during 
the reign of Tiberius, and under the administration of 
Sejanus, the father of the notorious minister whom 
Tiberius trusted, detected and destroyed. This Sejanus 
was succeeded by Flaccus Avillius, who followed the 
policy of his predecessor, and encouraged the Alexan- 



CALIGULA AND THE JEWS. 19 

drian mob in acts of violence on the Jewish quarters. 
For a time, the seclusion, the sufferance, the patience, 
the profound humility of this people, enabled them to 
avoid the hostility which they could not disarm. " The 
race," says Cicero, " is slavish to the core." There was, 
however, a limit to this submission — there was an act 
of tyranny which could rouse this people to enthusiastic 
resistance. They might be insulted, plundered, tor- 
tured, and they would fawn on the wrong-doer. But 
they were stung to frenzy if any insult was offered to 
their God, and to His temple. 

Caligula resolved to be worshipped as a god. The 
empire was prostrate before the majesty of the Caesar. 
It began by worshipping his fortunes, and it at last 
reached the inconceivable meanness of adoring the man. 
This baseness was not unknown in the days of Augus- 
tus ; it grew during the reign of Tiberius. But the 
degradation was voluntary, was confined to places and 
individuals. Caligula strove to make it compulsory, 
and to extend it over the whole empire. 

The promulgation of this new religion gave an op- 
portunity of which the enemies of the Alexandrian 
Jews availed themselves, in order to satisfy the malig- 
nity of their perpetual feud. Flaccus secretly encour- 
aged every excess against Israelites, every outrage 
which could be committed. The Jewish quarters suf. 
fered all the horrors of a sacked city. At last Flaccus 
was recalled, — it was a satisfaction to the pious Jcav to 
know that the enemy of his nation was ruined, dis- 
graced, and finally banished to an island in the Egean. 



20 PAUL OF TABS US. 

Here, as he bemoaned his fate, Caligula remembered 
him. This emperor suffered from one of the common 
symptoms of madness, continual want of sleep. In an 
hour of this watchfulness, he bethought himself of the 
numerous exiles who were confined in their insular 
prisons, and among them of Flaccus, and despatched 
his executioners after him. Philo again exults over the 
horrible circumstances which attended the legate's 
slaughter. 

Still the troubles of the Jews were not ended. Pe- 
tronius was charged in Judea with the duty of setting 
up the statue of the emperor in the femple, and the Al- 
exandrian Jews were harassed because they did not 
worship Csesar. So they resolved to send an embassy 
to Caligula, with the view of deprecating his wrath, 
and of pleading their inability to fulfil his command. 
The leader of this forlorn hope was Philo. This em- 
inent person has given an account of his interview with 
the madman who was ruling the world, and of the 
danger which the deputation ran in the attempt to con- 
ciliate him. Fortunately for the embassy, Caligula was 
not in one of his savage moods, and merely amused 
himself with his trembling petitioners. He was occu- 
pied in decorating a palace, and had no present appetite 
for blood. So he dismissed Philo and his companions 
for a time, observing that they were rather to be pitied 
than blamed for their unwillingness to worship him. 

The Jews of Alexandria were distinguished for their 
culture as well as for their wealth. The} founded a 
school of philosophy, or at least amalgamated the spec- 



THE THEOSOPHY OF PHILO. 21 

ulations of the great Greek thinkers with their own 
theosophy. Many of them were thoroughly versed in 
the hterature of Greece, and Philo in particular quotes 
largely from the most famous poets. The system 
which they constructed was eclectic. They adopted 
the mystic theory of numbers which characterized the 
tenets of the Pythagoreans, incorporated the Pla- 
tonic ideas, and accepted the Aristotelian logic, as the 
vehicle of their formularies, and as a support to their 
allegories. 

The doctors of the Jews recognized under the name 
of Memra, a Word or Reason of God, whom they called 
the son of God, the mediator between God and man. 
The same conception is traceable in the Apocryphal 
book of wisdom, which is supposed to have been the 
work of an Alexandrian Jew. But in Philo, the Word 
is the true High Priest, the legate of the Most High, 
the archetypal exemplar, the creative power, the per- 
petual Mediator. This conception, enlarged, exalted, 
and identified with Christ, is the central figure in tlie 
fourth gospel, the form under which Jesus the Prophet, 
the Teacher, the Redeemer, the King, the Mediator, the 
Judge of humanity, is exhibited as the eternal Son, the 
Sharer in the creative power of the Almighty. 

To our modern habit of thought, the allegories of 
Philo would seem childish and forced. With this au- 
thor, for example, the story of the Patriarchs was not 
only a narrative of Israel's childhood, but a mine from 
which the treasures of Divine truth might be extracted, 
the profound verities of religion might be illustrated or 



22 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

demonstrated. St. Paul himself has not disdained to 
use this method of exposition in his parallel between 
the Law and the Gospel, the son of Hagar and the son 
of Sarah ; and again in his contrast between the heav- 
enly bread and miraculous water which followed the 
wandering Israelites, and the spiritual sustenance which 
Christ affords those who are within His covenant of 
grace. 

But though sometimes the Alexandrian theologian of 
the Jewish school was apt to make the Almighty rather 
a Power than a Person, to represent Him as Universal 
as well as One, and so to almost adopt a Pantheistic 
conception of the Divine nature, — the idea which he 
entertained as to the action of God is lofty, just and 
consolatory. His most marked attribute is that of a 
protector to suffering humanity, an avenger of high- 
handed insolence, of mercilessness, of wickedness, and of 
wrong-doing. As a servant of such a God, the Jew of 
Alexandria could hold no man in slavery. The essence 
of the Divine nature is His Providence, His universal, 
unsleeping sight, His absolute knowledge of each man, 
in act, in word, in thought, in heart. And if sometimes 
His hand is slow^ to strike the wrong-doer, and His ear 
seems closed to the wail of misery, — the prayer of the 
poor destitute, — He is sure to perform at last what His 
long-suffering tenderness delays. It was this firm con- 
fidence which made the Jew patient in adversity, 
trustful in the direst need. It is this trust which has 
given unity and unchangeableness to a race now exiled 
for eighteen centuries from its fatherland. He could 



JEWISH TEACHINGS OF PROVIDENCE. 23 

endure all things, if he held fast to the cardinal tenet 
of God's eternal being, if he was jealous of God's hon- 
or, if he clung to. the crowning consolation of an ulti- 
mate deliverance, to be worked by the power of Him 
who is mighty to save. It need hardly be said that this 
calm, confident hope is the thought which penetrates 
the devotional books of the Old Testament, which has 
made the Psalter a perpetual solace to Jew and Chris- 
tian, which gave the great prophets of old so mighty a 
power of interpreting the letter by the spirit, as to 
make them, instead of being the Ulemas of a scanty 
Syi'ian tribe, the teachers of the whole human race. 
Even now the revelation which these fathers make of 
the Divine nature is inferior to the luminous exposition 
which the Gospel gives of the Almighty counsels, in 
degree only, not in kind, as the dawn of a summer's 
day differs in brilliancy only from the sun-light in its 
strength. 

Among the practical rules of Judaism, none was 
insisted on with greater emphasis than the duty of 
succoring the poor, the fatherless, the widow. The 
reaping of the harvest, the gathering of the vintage, 
the shaking of the olive-trees, must not be too com- 
plete, that this rule of kindly care for the helpless may 
not be lost sight of, even in the urgent business of life. 
The servitude of Jew to Jew was peraiitted, but only 
for a brief space, since the Sabbath-year must see the 
Hebrew bondman free. The pledge must not be mer- 
cilessly enacted, in some cases must be restored. Nor 
could a Jew perpetually alienate the inheritance of his 



24 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

fathers. Between Jew and Jew those money-dealings 
which, more than aught else, make men harsh and un- 
feeling, must .not be stimulated by the condition of 
usury or increase. Nay, similar rules attend the usage 
of the brute creation. The laboring ox must be un- 
muzzled when he treads out the corn, in order that he, 
too, may share in the bounty of Him who gives both 
seed-time and harvest. It is a cruelty which the Law 
forbids, to take the mother bird and her young ; it is 
unnaturally harsh even to seethe the kid in his mother's 
milk. Is it not also likely that the horror of eating 
blood — the life of living beings — which is treated as 
the oldest command of the Law, may not have had the 
same humanizing object of inculcating gentleness and 
tenderness, and the avoidance of that familiarity with 
violence and slaughter which always brutalizes man ? 
Commands like these, energetically interpreted, — ex- 
tended so as to include the spirit of the Law, as well as 
its letter, — educated the Jew in the habit of generous 
dealing towards those of his own nation who needed 
the aid which he could give. Until he was maddened 
beyond endurance by the insults which despotism 
heaped on his faith, and the dishonor which was done 
his God, the. patriotism of the Jew did not consist so 
much in the glorious memories which belonged to his 
race, as in the active exercise of benevolence towards 
his fellow-countrymen, — in the readiness with which he 
listened to the cry of distress. It is by this, as well as 
by his pure monotheism-, that the Jew stands out so 
markedly in the civilization of the ancient world. And 



ALEXANDRIAN PHILOSOPHY. 25 

it was this spirit which Christianity incorporated into 
its ethical code, the best inheritance which it gained 
fi-om the older creed. Judaism, it is true, confined, in 
theory at least, its kindliness to the race of Abraham, 
though it is impossible that a carefully trained gentle- 
ness of nature should be wholly bounded by the ties of 
blood — should be deaf to any cry for pity which may 
rise from those of an alien race. But Christianity, in 
the hands of its great missionary, accepted as its car- 
dinal truth, that all the generations of mankind should 
be blessed by the great Son of Abraham and David, 
and so enforced the beneficent maxims of the Jewish 
code on behalf of all those who are gathered within 
the church of Christ. Here was the contrast between 
the hard, selfish, haughty pride of the Roman, and the 
boundless charity of the Christian convert. Here was 
the origin of that marvellous conversion, which, leaving 
St. Paul in possession of his ancient courage and in- 
domitable will, made him able to endure all things, and 
yet acknowledge the duty of universal charity. 

As God was the Maker of all, the Judge of all, the 
Saviour of all, so He is in this Alexandrian Judaism 
the Author of all grace. St. Paul himself did not 
plead more vehemently against self-righteousness and 
self-sufficiency than Philo does when he says, that the 
man who recognizes the work of his own mind only, 
and does not see God in what he can do, is a brigand 
who robs another of his due. 

That the philosophy of Alexandria had a wide in- 
fluence is known. It is clearly traceable in the writ- 
2 



26 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

ings of Seneca, who was the pupil of a Jewish doctor. 
But its influences on Christianity were abiding. It 
contributed largely to that speculative spirit which 
early busied itself with abstract dogma, from the days 
of Origen to those of Athanasius and Cyril. The 
chief city of Egj^t was the cradle of dogmatic theol- 
ogy, the workshop from which issued these definitions 
and distinctions which tore Christianity into sectarian- 
ism. And, unhappily, it was also the earliest home of 
bitter intolerance. The birthplace of turbulent theo- 
logical factions, of persecuting ferocity, of insane ascet- 
icism, of frivolous ceremony, of arrogant sacerdotalism, 
it canonized these passions in the person of Cyril, who. 
Christian bishop as he was, rivalled Flaccus in his out- 
rages on the Jews, and gloried in being the murderer of 
Hypatia. 

It was inevitable that the Greek conquest of Asia 
should have powerfully affected Semitic habits of 
thought. Alexander and his successors gave their sub- 
jects an army and a discipline. Army and discipline, 
it is true, rapidly deteriorated. He gave them also an 
administration, which must have remained Greek to a 
large extent, though it was accommodated to Eastern 
habits. Those Greek customs, also, the gymnasium and 
the sophist's lecture, took root in the Asiatic and Egyp- 
tian cities. Schools of philosophy, the basis of whose 
training was laid in the formularies of the great Athen- 
ian thinkers, flourished among these outlandish towns 
which the Greeks generalized as barbarian. The most 
famous Jewish doctors accepted and employed some of 



ROMAN TOLERATION OF JUDAISM. 27 

these philosophic forms. The Pauline epistles contain 
many illustrations of the exactitude with which the 
nomenclature of the Peripatetic system was known to 
the Apostle, however little the Aristotelian syllogism 
may appear in his writings. The young Pharisee who 
sat at the foot of Gamaliel learned from him technical 
terms which were much more nearly like the method of 
the Academy and the Porch, than akin to the discipline 
of these schools of the prophets which Samuel seems to 
have founded, and whose influence, moral and political, 
was so great during the epoch of the kings. Some of 
the dispersed Jews, whose allegiance to the Mosaic code 
was loose, even frequented the gymnasium, and took 
part in the games. It is not at all inconsistent with 
human nature that this laxity of conduct and discipline 
coexisted with a ferocious patriotism and a fanatical 
spirit towards those who appeared to secede from Jew- 
ish unity. The dispersed Jews were always the bitter- 
est enemies of the Apostle, both in Jerusalem and 
elsewhere. 

It seems, moreover, that the chief civil and eccle- 
siastical magistrates of Judea exercised a precarious 
criminal jurisdiction over their dispersed compatriots. 
They may have obtained this authority by the consent 
of the Roman senators, who were always well disposed 
towards an established religion, the dignitaries of which 
might be useful instruments for the maintenance of 
order. The controversial essay of Hippolytus, bishop 
of Ostia^ in which the tenets of the more prominent 
heretics in the early part of the third century are ex- 



28 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

pounded, shows that the exercise of the Jewish religion 
was protected in Rome at this epoch. The empire may- 
have connived at this imperium in imperio^ feeling with 
Gallio, that it was not the part of a dignified Roman to 
adjudicate on the squabbles which broke out among the 
devotees of a despicable superstition, and that it was 
quite out of the question to expect that a Roman judge 
should attempt to understand the by-laws of a ghetto. 
This contemptuous toleration was of infinite value to 
the infant churches. It was only when the political and 
social system of the Roman empire seemed to be im- 
perilled by the growth of Christianity, that systematic 
persecution began. 

The Roman law favored all voluntary associations. 
It conferred a legal status on such parties as united 
themselves into a coi'poration, and enacted by-laws for 
their own order and guidance. Perhaps the most val- 
uable inheritance of Roman civilization is the spon- 
taneous municipality, the collegium of the jurists, the 
voluntary corporation, on which law bestowed some of 
the personality of the social unit. The peculiarities 
of the Jewish creed, the marked servility, and the 
equally marked pride of its devotees, — qualities which 
have made them at once the most pliant and the most 
conservative of races, — led them to eagerly adopt 
those provisions of the law which gave their associa- 
tions a legal color and standing. 

The rigid monotheism of the restored Jew, and his 
hatred to all anthropomorphic conceptions of God, 
markedly distinguish the Israelite whom Ezra led back 



ASSOCIATION AMONG THE JEWS. 29 

from Persia, and the Macchabees marshalled against 
the gross nature-worship of Syria, from the Israelite of 
the Davidic kingdom, who perpetually fell into Cana- 
anite idolatry. The Scriptures of the Old Testament 
prove how easily the ancestors of the later Jews were 
seduced into adopting the gods of the heathen, Baal 
and Ashtaroth, Moloch and Chemosh. It is not un- 
likely that intercourse with their Persian conquerors 
may have aided the children of the captivity in form- 
ing those strict conceptions of monotheism, which 
insulated the Jew of the Roman Empire. It assuredly 
developed that dualism, the perpetual conflict between 
a good and an evil power, which constituted the basis 
of Aryan theology, which, almost absent from the sys- 
tem of the Old Testament, is allowed in the New, which 
has at length been taken by many sects to constitute the 
essence of the Christian creed, and which is the most 
poetical as well as the most stirring form in which men 
can put before themselves the ends and the means of 
the religious life, though it is far from being the noblest 
conception of divine love and gentleness. 

It is easy to see, then, how this Jew, forced or in- 
duced to quit his native land, secluded fi*om the society 
in which he lived by ceremonial obligations, by an in- 
effaceable rite, by a persistent patriotism, whose nation- 
ality was fed by a host of magnificent memories, and 
sustained by an energetic organization, should have 
eagerly adopted those means of association which the 
Roman law permitted. The dispersed Jews levied a 
voluntary tax on themselves, and transmitted the pro- 



30 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

ceeds to the hierarchy at Jerusalem. The economy of 
ancient society supplied a ready means for this trans- 
mission, for the mechanism by which foreign exchanges 
were effected was well known to the old world. The 
Parable of the Talents is proof that so much of the 
system of banking, as is contained in the practice of 
giving interest on deposit accounts, was so familiarly 
used in Palestine as to become an obvious and popular 
illustration in a religious apologue. It is plain that 
if a Syrian banker was ready to encourage depositors 
with an offer of interest, he must have used these de- 
posits either as advances on loan, or as the means for 
effecting exchanges with distant countries, and that the 
latter object is much more likely than the former. The 
Jew has traded in money from the days of the Mac- 
chabees. 

Sometimes these collegia, as the Roman law called 
them, were declared unlawful. Occasions frequently 
arose, on which the haughty conservatism of the Ro- 
man noble was led to proscribe that which it always 
despised, on the plea uttered at Philippi, — that the 
practice was not lawful to a Roman, that the public 
morality was debased by the presence of foreign super- 
stition, or that the gods of the Republic were insulted 
by rivals. The religion of Rome was essentially do- 
mestic. The great gods of the city were to the state 
what the Penates were to the household. Generally it 
was thought politic to conciliate a foreign deity. But 
it was another thing to introduce his unlicensed culte 
into Rome, or into a colony which was constitutionally 



OLD TESTAMENT POLITY INDEFINITE. 31 

a part of Rome. And much more frequently, as it is 
conceived, the wealth of these Jewish collegia roused 
the avarice of those Roman nobles, whose rapacity 
was even more devouring than their pride. Verres 
and Flaccus were the types of a class. 

The Old Testament sanctions no particular form of 
government, prescribes no single system of secular au- 
thority, enforces no uniform organization of society 
or administration. The eternal purpose of the Al- 
mighty does not condescend to define a form of polity 
for man. The house of Aaron is gifted with the priest- 
hood, the fierce tribe of Levi is dedicated to Jehovah. 
But neither priest nor Levite is invested with magis- 
terial functions. The only office w^hich the priest of 
the old covenant exercised was that of a judicial 
decision on the condition of a person suspected of 
leprosy, with the duty of pronouncing the social 
excommunication of one convicted of this disease. 
The taint of leprosy, incurable by any remedy w^hich 
lay in the power of man, became, by an obvious met- 
aphor, the representative of the moral taint of sin, of 
which man cannot rid his fellow-man, which must be 
cleared away by some act of divine beneficence, and 
which, being inheritable, designates the inherent de- 
pravity of the human race, a moral as consequent upon 
a physical death. But the priest of the Pentateuch 
and the early historical books of the Old Testament 
is not a ruler, not even a magistrate. Before the mon- 
archy, there was no central government in Israel, ex- 
cept during the occasional supremacy of some eminent 
judge. 



32 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

In Palestine itself, after the rise of the Asmonean 
dynasty, the offices of high priest and monarch were 
for a time united. Later on, they were divided, the 
high priest becoming the centre of that ecclesiastical 
system to which the scattered Jewish communities 
owed allegiance and tribute. This Israelite pope was 
assisted by a council, or conclave, or sanhedrim, or 
presbytery, as St. Paul himself calls it. It was before 
this assembly that Stephen, the first martyr, was 
brought, and by it that he was condemned. It was in 
imitation of this central organization that the Chris- 
tian Church of Jerusalem established the sacred College 
over whom James was set, and by whose authority it 
was intended that all the converts of the gospel should 
be governed. It was this assumption which St. Paul 
resisted with so much energy and with such success at 
Antioch. It is doubtful, however, whether the College 
at Jerusalem would not have ultimately succeeded in 
establishing its pretensions, had not the capture and 
total destruction of the city dispersed the organization 
of the Christian Jews in Palestine. 

It is possible that the form which the permanent 
council of the high priest assumed was borrowed from 
the usage of Greek and Roman politics. In the view 
of Aristotle, the senate was essentially a popular institu- 
tion, and was characteristic of that political civilization 
which the Greeks achieved. The Roman municipality 
had officers and senate, as in Rome, — duumviri, who 
represented the consuls ; curiales, who were the coun- 
cillors of the provincial towns. So, where the dis- 



TEE SCRIPTUBES OF TEE JEWS. 6'6 

persed Jews were in numbers sufficient for a synagogue, 
they had a chief of their community, and a council of 
advice. Such synagogues, for example, existed at 
Thessalonica, Athens, Corinth, and Ephesus, and were, 
naturally, the first theatre for the Apostle's preaching, 
as they w^ere constantly the source from which mischief 
threatened him. The captivity of St. Paul, mth which 
the direct narrative of the Apostle's life ceases, was 
primarily the work of those Asiatic Jews whom he had 
often confronted in their synagogues, and from whom 
he had finally separated his converts during the time 
of his last visit to Ephesus. In its beginnings, Chris- 
tianity, like the Judaism of the Christian era, was the 
religion of towns-folk. The heathenism of the villages 
was not assailed till long after the apostolic age. But 
we shall see the effects of this hereafter, in considering 
what was the organization of the Church in its early 
stages of existence. 

It does not appear that the Jews of the apostolic age 
were profoundly conversant with all the books of the 
Old Testament. A general acquaintance with the 
Pentateuch, a more thorough knowledge of the Psalms, 
and with some of the leading Messianic prophecies, 
seem to constitute the Biblical learning possessed by a 
carefully taught Jew. The New Testament contains 
few allusions to the history of the chosen people during 
the years which intervened between the settlement of 
Canaan and the reign of David, or during the rival 
monarchies. And yet it would have been expected — 
had the writers of the New Testament been well ac- 

2* B 



34 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

quainted with the historical books of the Old — that 
allusions would have been frequent, that types and 
allegories would have been discovered abundantly, and 
that the spuit of the prophetic books would have been 
invoked constantly and successfully against a blind 
obedience to much of the ceremonial law which the 
Israelite followed. The story of the chosen people is 
full of passages which might have been used fi-eely for 
the pui-pose of spiritual analogy. What, for example, 
is more obvious than the long doom of that kingdom 
whose rulers persistently made Israel to sin ; and the 
religious significance of the lesson? What story is 
more fitted for typical illustration than the exquisite 
narrative of Joseph? What indicates more forcibly 
the single-heartedness of the Christian than the career 
of Joshua, his zeal than that of Elijah? One would 
like to know what scriptures those were in which 
Apollos was mighty. Moses, we know, was read on 
the Sabbath. Christ commented on the prophecy of 
Isaiah in the synagogue of Nazareth. St. Paul, how- 
ever, quotes the Old Testament scriptures frequently, 
especially in the Epistle to the Romans. 

Some even of these scanty quotations are inaccurate. 
Jeremiah is credited with a passage from Zechariah. 
The author of the Epistle of St. James ascribes the 
drought in the days of Ahab to the efficacy of Elijah's 
prayers, but the narrative in the Book of Kings desig- 
nates the prediction of this visitation as a revelation 
from Jehovah, and the return of the customary showers 
aJ a similar announcement, the prophet being a per- 



THE CRITICAL FACULTY MODERN. 36 

fectly passive instrument. Again, the Epistle of Jucle 
quotes as genuine, and without the slightest suspicion, 
the Book of Enoch, and refers to the legend of a dis- 
pute between Michael and the Devil over the body of 
Moses, as though it were part of the sacred history. 

It is almost superfluous to say that the critical faculty 
^vhich investigates facts judicially, and which considers 
their reality as relative to their probability, is of recent 
growth. Nothing, indeed, is or can be told with per- 
fect accuracy, — no description, for example, gives all 
the circumstances which have come before the sight. 
Still less is it possible to assign all the causes and 
motives of an action. The utmost that can be done is 
to narrate as much of the event as is needed to give a 
clear and distinct impression of its leading features, to 
tell the story as it invited the attention or affected the 
imagination of the narrator. Even under these circum- 
stances, two independent witnesses, both of whom en- 
deavor to give a genuine account of their impressions, 
may traverse, or even contradict each otlier in particu- 
lars, as one sees every day in judicial proceedings. 
The habit of criticising events, as though they were 
marshalled before a court of law and in view of the 
verdict of a jury or the sentence of a judge, and with 
such strictness as to make it requisite that dates, places, 
and persons should be precisely identified, is modern. 
And it may very possibly happen that what is gained 
in precision by such an analytical process, is more than 
lost in the weakened vivacity of the tale and even in its 
substantive veracity. To treat that only as a fact 



36 PAUL OF TABSUS. 

which is a likelihood, reduces history to a dull drama 
of mechanical puppets, which has far less reality than a 
confessedly poetical narrative. 

The authors of those books which have come down 
to us under the collective name of the New Testa- 
ment, lived in a thoroughly matter-of-fact world, with 
which their affections and their hopes were very little 
in harmony. They were the helpless subjects of a de- 
vom-ing and remorseless despotism. Before the empire 
was inaugurated, these subjects from time to time 
strove to free themselves from the yoke. After this 
epoch, the Jewish struggle in the later days of Nero 
was the last effort which a nationality made to vindi- 
cate its autonomy. It is impossible for us to realize 
the deadening effects of such a despotism. From it 
there was no escape, even no exile. Outside its bar- 
riers were surging up those hordes, which in the end 
poured over it like a flood. But in the early days of 
the Roman empire these marauders were kept effect- 
ually at bay, along a vast range of frontier, flight over 
which was rarely open to the discontented. The civil- 
ized world was literally bound in fetters. Caesar and 
his legions were everywhere, crushing down every 
thing with the iron heel of power, enslaving every one. 
Speech was watched, for the empire swarmed with 
spies and informers. Thought was hardly free, for the 
tremendous interpretations given to the law of treason, 
made every man suspicious and suspected. The repu- 
tation of eminent virtue and of daring vice was equally 
dangerous. The best hope of safety lay in insignifi- 



ROMAN DESPOTISM. 37 

cance and obscurity. The saddest lot was to be of 
Caesar's kinsfolk, the luckiest was to be his favorite 
slave. " It is a rare happiness," says Tacitus, writing in 
the better days of Trajan, "to think as you will, and to 
speak as you think." It is amazing that in such an 
age, Christianity laid its foundations so deeply and so 
broadly. 

The long indulgence of every sensual passion makes 
Eastern sovereigns, we are told, feel a languid pleasure 
in cnielty for its own sake. It becomes an excitement 
to inflict pain. But these Eastern despots must be 
roused from a more delicious apathy in order to enter- 
tain this pleasure. The worst of the Roman emperors 
had a horrible activity in the pursuit of this gratifica- 
tion. Caligula and Nero, the former fi'om a ferocious 
insanity, the latter from very wantonness, were pre-em- 
inently cruel. The former demanded divine honors to 
be paid him ; the latter, beyond his unnumbered out- 
rages upon the people whom he ruled, worked special 
havoc on the imperial house. Mother, wife, cousin, 
were his victims. And these monsters of despotism — 
so totally crushed was the people — fell by their af- 
fronted soldiers, not by the daggers of those whom 
they had outraged or wronged. The Roman emperor 
had no one to fear but his praetorians, and the body- 
guard of the emperor was generally faithful to its pay- 
master. The mission of St. Paul was cast in the 
darkest era of the world's history. It was a long day 
of despair. 

From such overwhelming misery there are two kinds 



38 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

of refuge. Men may forget their degradation in prof- 
ligacy, or escape into the haven of rehgion. Caesar 
may claim their life, their goods, their corporeal liberty, 
but he cannot quench their passions, or he cannot co- 
erce their souls. They may drown their moral con- 
sciousness in debauchery, or they may take the wings 
of a dove, and fly to the rest of the people of God, — 
may possess their souls in patieuce. 

The ft-agments of a romance, professedly written in 
the days of N"ero — and which may well have been 
composed at that time — still exist under the title of 
the Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter. The name of the 
book means no more than that the composition is partly 
prose, partly verse. It contains a few passages of great 
beauty, and one of genuine humor, the tale of the 
Ephesian matron. But the greater part of the frag- 
ments is the narrative of a licentious revel. It is the 
mere delirium of debauchery. And yet it is probably 
a picture of the expedients by which a Koman noble 
strove to forget the despotism under which he lived. 
Much which the Caesarism of that age could not crush, 
it utterly debased. Aristophanes, Lucian, Rabelais are 
coarse and licentious enough, but Petronius is tran- 
scendently impure. 

Another novel has come down to us entire. It is of 
a later date than the fragments of Petronius, but it is 
tainted in the same way, though in an inferior degree. 
The Golden Ass of Apuleius has been said to be a ro- 
mance inculcating the worship of the good goddess — 
the deified power of nature. As a pictm-e of social 



THE REFUGE FROM CJESARISM, 39 

life, it justifies the indignant condemnation of the 
Apostle, when he reckons up, with characteristic ve- 
hemence, the accumulated misdeeds of those who are 
given up by their own vices to a reprobate mind, who 
know how great is their own depravity, but indulge it, 
and encourage others to the like. 

The other refuge from the slavery of Caesarism, from 
the subjection of the physical man and his material 
possessions to despotism, was religion. And this re- 
ligion was of two kinds. One had been long in exist- 
ence, partly as a protest against the gross superstition? 
of the popular theology, partly as an inquiry into the 
conditions of mind and being. It had now become the 
defiant avowal of the superiority of moral right ovei 
brute force, even though it was constrained to occupy 
the attitude of passive resistance. This was philoso- 
phy, especially that of the later Stoics. The other 
alternative was new, obscure, despised, — a foolish re- 
finement, as was thought, upon a Syrian superstition 
This was Christianity, as taught by Paul and his asso- 
ciates. The last struggle between the ancient religion 
of the heathen w^orld, and the new force which was to 
leaven civilization, came in the form of a controversy 
between philosophy and Christianity, — a struggle 
which continued vigorously in Athens and Alexandria 
long after the Empire professed the Faith, and which 
was at last concluded by the compulsory silence of the 
philosophers. And if Christianity converted the Con- 
stantines, philosophy numbered the Antonines among 
its disciples and devotees. 



40 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

The philosophers of the Empire did not aim at pro- 
viding a system which should leaven society at large. 
They merely purposed to instruct those who had ca- 
pacity and leisure. They did not demand that their 
disciples should be rich, well-born, influential. It was 
the pride of philosophy that it totally ignored rank and 
wealth, or treated them as superficial and unimportant 
circumstances. The fact that the satirist sometimes 
depicts the philosopher as hanging on to the skirts of 
the rich, of being a parasite, is negative testimony that 
such practices were a dishonor to the profession which 
the philosopher made, and that the majority of these 
savants were free from the imputation of such aims. 
When a churchman is described as rapacious, lux- 
urious, or licentious, and emphasis is laid on character- 
istics of this kind, the satirist of the individual intends 
to imply that such a person is an exception and a scan- 
dal. When Boccaccio depicts the clergy of his day, 
he expresses no indignation against their profligacy, 
gluttony, and mendacity. These were, at that epoch, 
the general vices of the order. 

The philosophies of antiquity could not address 
themselves to the general mass of the community. 
They did not appeal to sympathy, which is a universal 
bond, but to intelligence or reason, which is a limited 
faculty, an exceptional endowment. Still, the philos- 
opher intended to influence society at large. But this 
was to be effected by attracting and instructing such 
minds as could rule or guide mankind. The greatest 
victory of this discipline was to be achieved when the 



PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. 41 

philosopher should rule, or the ruler become a true and 
competent philosopher. " Under existing habits of 
thought," says Plato, " this is a tremendous paradox, 
the advocates of which will be saved from active hos- 
tility only by a torrent of ridicule. But," the speaker 
continues, " it is only in this way that society can be 
saved." Nor can it be doubted that the object which 
the Stoic and Platonist of the empire had before him, 
was an attempt to supplant, by his better way, a brutal 
military system, and that any success in this direction 
was a prodigious gain to mankind. Few monarchs 
have reached the simplicity, piety, truthfulness, and 
zeal for the public good, which characterized Anto- 
ninus and Aurelius. The age of these great princes is 
the one oasis in the desert of the Roman Empire. 
They were the ripest and the best examples of what 
philosophy could do for man. But theirs was not a 
lasting example. The general vices of despotism ruin 
society, and its occasional virtues are incompetent to 
restore it. 

That Chiistianity has affected the mass of mankind 
is primarily due to the fundamental propositions which 
it aflfirms. It says, that mankind has been saved or 
restored by the life and death of Clirist, however dif- 
ferently the profession of Christianity has understood 
both life and death, however limited or however wide 
may be its interpretation of the benefit which man- 
kind has gained by that Great Fact in the history of 
the world. The more wretched, forlorn, depraved, has 
been the condition of those who have been introduced 



42 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

to this gospel and who have received it, the clearer has 
the benefit been. Hence, however much the teaching 
of Christianity may appeal to the reason, it appeals 
still more urgently to the feelings, reaching to their 
lowest depths, and stirring them profoundly and com- 
pletely. It demands faith, but it demands action as a 
proof of faith. It addresses the indi\ddual, and, there- 
fore, fi-om its very beginnings it markedly repudiated 
that most preposterous outcome of Nihihsm, under 
which the Buddhist longs for annihilation and absorp- 
tion. It is true, that after a time this gross supersti- 
tion attacked the Eastern Church, and produced those 
swarms of hermits and monks who travestied Chris- 
tianity in the third century. Even now, the descend- 
ants of these Buddhist devotees, the Lamas of 
Central Asia, closely resemble, as MM. Hue and Gar- 
bet affirm, the monkish orders of the Greek and 
Roman churches. Had such an absurdity been de- 
veloped during the life of Paul, and in the chui-ches 
which he founded, his indignation would have vented 
itself in lang-uaoe like that in which he denounces the 
Judaizing bigots of Jerusalem, when he writes to 
the Galatians. 

But though the Christianity of the apostolic age ad- 
dresses the individual, it supposes him to be at one with 
other believers in Christ. Man is not saved for himself 
only, any more than he is saved by his own efforts. 
He is not, and cannot be, the isolated object of the 
Divine mercy and grace. Christ came to save the 
world. The arrogance and self-complacency which 



THE APOSTLES PREACHED IN CITIES. 43 

induce men to think themselves the particular object 
of God's favor, that affected thankfulness which is real 
contempt for others, is the temper of the Pharisee, not 
of the Christian. The Christian must teach his fellow- 
man, by word it may be, by deeds of necessity. The 
individual is converted, to be enrolled into a church, 
with an organization, a government, a corjjorate power, 
a corporate grace. 

The apostles preached in towns. The intinerary 
of St. Paul is fi-om Philippi to Thessalonica, Beroea, 
Athens, Corinth. Nothing is said about halting at 
intermediate places, and preaching the gospel in the 
villages or small towns which were interspersed 
throughout this route. The social arrangements of 
cities were more available for the message of the 
gospel than the population of the pagi and demes was. 
It is not, indeed, to be supposed that the country folk 
of Greece and Italy, of Asia Minor or Palestine, were 
planted in scattered households. They dwelt together 
for purposes of mutual defence, and generally had 
their stronghold to which they might convey their 
possessions when marauders were about. So, in all 
probability, the form of the English village, where the 
houses are clustered together near the church, is 
derived from the time in which the country was liable 
to the incursions of Danes and other Norsemen, and 
when the church was a common hall in times of quiet, 
a storehouse, an arsenal, and a castle in times of 
danger. 

It was easier to gather a church together in these 



44 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

cities. There was the synagogue, or the place of 
prayer ; there were the dispersed Jews, sometimes 
friendly, often hostile ; there were the devout Greeks, 
who had been attracted from nature worship and its 
coarse superstitions to the pure monotheism of the 
Jews, though they did not accept its ceremonial obli- 
gations. Sometimes they had even learned so much 
as to comprehend that interpretation of the letter by 
the spirit, which was known as John's baptism, and 
which was the restoration of that generous and living 
zeal which characterized the Hebrew prophet of the 
kingdom. This was ground prepared for the seed. 
But once within the believing church, the Apostle 
taught that there was an absolute oneness and equality 
in Christ. The distinction between Jew and Greek 
was to disappear; the ancient rite which sealed the 
covenant of Abraham, and was renewed under the 
captaincy of Joshua, was now obsolete ; the foreigner 
was a citizen of the new Church, the Jerusalem which 
was from above. The Scythian savage might become 
the docile disciple, or the active preacher ; the slave 
was the Lord's freeman, the freeman was bought with 
the price of Christ's death. The nature of the convert 
was changed, the old man was put off — there was no 
further fellowship with bygone habits, practices, and 
beliefs, which were now for ever abandoned; for in 
their place was a new being, ever growing, ever devel- 
oping, ever renewing itself, and gradually by its spir- 
itual introspect, as it knows more and more, reaching 
that likeness of the Creator, for which it once igno- 



INTENSE EARLY CHRISTIAN FEELING. 45 

rantly yearned, into which it is now being trans- 
formed. 

To those who lived within this mystic union, the 
outer world seemed lifeless or corrupt, — an unreal 
thing, which was passing away. The religion of the 
heathen was a sacrifice to devils, its political system a 
mystery of iniquity, — a revelation of Antichrist, — of 
the Man of Sin. For a time, many of the converts 
had lived in and for this system, — had been enslaved 
to its grossness, or overpowered by its prestige. They 
had now been enlightened ; and to go back, even in 
thought, to that from which they had escaped, was as 
impossible as it would be for a child to again accept 
the errors which have been utterly dispelled by a sud- 
den and large experience. They enjoyed the full light 
of a clear and perfect faith, the intensity of which cor- 
responded to the fi-eshness of its growth, and contrasted 
with the black debasement from which the man had 
effected his escape. With men in this state of happy, 
joyous trust, who lived in an age when charity had 
not been throttled by dogmas and definitions, there 
was no doubt to torment the mind, no gloss on the 
law of liberty, which should seek to make it an in- 
tolerable bondage. 

It is in this absolute seclusion from past interests 
that we must account for the indifference to public 
questions which formed an early reproach on the Chris- 
tian community, and that timidity, or, at least, acqui- 
escence in the established order of things, which 
characterized the Apostolic age. The casuistry of a 



46 PAUL OF TABS US. 

later age perverted the tenets which justified this 
policy into a permanent political creed, and attempted 
to make that a rule for the conduct of a Christian 
community which was intended to secure to these 
new converts complete isolation from a social system 
which could not be touched without impurity. The 
early Christians dared not exercise the rights of citizens 
without forfeiting or imperilhng the most precious 
privileges of their faith. It was even doubtfol whether 
they might hold social intercourse with unbelievers. 
Life was short, and immortality lay beyond it. 

Besides, it is manifest that all — apostles and people 
— looked forward to the immediate consummation of 
the world. St. Paul was possessed by this impression. 
The times were in God's own power — the day and the 
hour were not revealed to the Christ in the days of 
His flesh, but hid in the counsels of the Father. But 
the time was assuredly short — there were those living 
who would be caught up in the air, to be for ever with 
Him. They were near Him now in spirit, they would 
be speedily near Him in the body. In the view of 
that faith which bridged over the interval of the 
Divine counsels, and already gave the assurance of the 
immediate presence of God, the world, its cares, its 
purposes, its pomp, its power, its threatenings, became 
most remote, most insignificant, a mere speck in the 
dawning Infinity. 



CHAPTER II. 

nr^HE principles of morality are not peculiar to one 
-*- epoch of civilization nor to one religion. They 
are as permanent and as universal as other laws of 
nature are. It is true, that like all those general posi- 
tions which are relative to the social condition of man, 
they are often imperfectly understood, often ignored, 
often violated to the detriment of society, to the injury 
of those who do not know them, or knowing break 
them. In just the same way, communities and indi- 
viduals understand the laws of health or of political 
economy imperfectly, defy them or break them. The 
perfection of moral science consists in the accurate 
knowledge of all moral obligations; the theory of 
civilization presumes a general acquiescence in these 
moral obligations, while its completeness is effected by 
prompt and general obedience to the precise rules of 
conduct and duty. 

It would not be difficult to construct several systems 
of pure morahty which should be almost perfect, and 
therefore alike, from a host of independent sources. 
The duties of individuals to society at large, and to the 
forces which compose society, are to be found in the 
Vedas, in the Zendavesta, in the works of the Athenian 



48 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

philosophers, in the Kabbala and Talmud, in the 
Koran, as well as in the 'New Testament. The author 
of the Epistle to the Romans bears witness to the uni- 
versality of the moral law, and to its suflSciency as an 
exposition of moral duty. It is an error to arrogate the 
affirmation of this moral law to one system of religion, 
and no less an error to argue that such parts of differ- 
ent systems as coincide must have been derived from 
some common source, or to see in some agreement that 
the one is a plagiary of the other. 

It is easy to discover a close resemblance between the 
morality of the Talmud and that of the New Testa- 
ment, easy for a partisan to exalt the gloss of the Jew- 
ish doctors over the rules of the Christian life as 
promulgated by the Evangelists and Apostles, or to 
ignore the teaching of the Rabbis in estimating the ser- 
vice which Christianity has done to the moral purifica^ 
tion of the world. It is not inconsistent with what we 
read of Christ in the gospels that He should have been, 
as Jewish writers have alleged, the pupil of that Rabbi 
Simeon who was noted as the chief of the Ascetics, the 
great teacher of the Essenes. It may be true that a 
close resemblance may be found between the com- 
parison of the lily of the field with the glory of Solo- 
mon, and a recorded saying of this famous doctor; 
that the eagerness with which a lost sheep is sought, 
and the tenderness with which it is welcomed back — 
one of the most touching of Christ's parables — may 
have its counterpart in a parable of the same sage. He 
is reported to have said that a certain man had a flock 



TEACHING OF TEE JEWISH DOCTORS. 49 

of sheep which were daily led to pasture. Here they 
were joined by a gazelle, who regularly fed with them, 
and returned with them to the fold. The owner of the 
flock bade his shepherds take the greatest care of this 
stranger ; and when he was asked why he showed it 
such favor, answered, This creature has left the wilder- 
ness, and, in spite of its own untamed and timid nature, 
has joined the flock. It is well that I should welcome 
it more affectionately than I do those who have been 
fed by me, and tended by my care. For that which is 
customary with them, is strange to the gazelle. And 
thus, continues the Rabbi, God will welcome the 
stranger who joins himself to the chosen people, more 
than He will those who have always had the blessing 
of His covenant, because they are born to Israel. 

Does the Christian law bid man love his neighbor, 
and assert that they who, serving God, do this, are 
near to the kingdom of God ? The great Doctor Hillel 
says, that not to do to your neighbor that which is dis- 
tasteful to yourself is the whole law; while another 
teacher infers the universal obligation of charity and 
beneficence fi-om the fact that man is created in the 
image of the Almighty. 

Again, the grace which is given to the humble, when 
expressed by the Jewish doctors, is stated under the 
foi-m that in the humble dwells permanently the 
Shekinah of the Almighty. The Divine Master bids 
those who would be first among men to be their ser- 
vants; the Rabbi gives a conversation between the 
chief among the Jews and Alexander the Great, — 

3 D 



60 PAUL OF TABSUS. 

" What should a man do who wishes to gain the love 
of his fellow-men ? Avoid all rule and authority over 
them." Are the disciples informed that he who exalt- 
eth himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth him- 
self shall be exalted ? — we are reminded of the maxim 
of Hillel, " My humiliation ^ill be my exaltation, my 
exaltation my humiliation." " The knowledge of God is 
not in heaven," says Moses; and the gloss of the Rabbi 
is, " Do not look to find it among those who raise their 
pride to heaven. He who makes himself little in this 
world for the sake of the Law will be great in the 
world to come." The Gospel bids the forgiveness of 
injuries, and the Talmud advises as follows : — " They 
who undergo injury without retaliation, who suffer 
themselves to be traduced and do not retort, and who 
accept the ills of life cheerfully, for them is that which 
was TVTitten in the prophets, ' The friends of God shall 
shine as the sun in his strength.' " And again, " God 
ranges Himself on the side of the persecuted, whether 
the persecutor and persecuted are equally just or 
equally wicked. Nay, as He assists the just man who 
is persecuted by the unjust, so He even aids the unjust 
when he is persecuted by the just." Are the disciples 
to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves ? — the 
Talmud says that " Israel is as brave as a lion, wise as 
a serpent, but that he has also the simplicity of a dove." 
It would be' possible to extend these examples indefi- 
nitely. It would be possible to exhibit similar parallel- 
isms from the teaching of the older Platonists and the 
later Stoics. The canons of morahty are universal 



THE JEWISH LOVE OF HOME. 51 

and immutable, for they are the highest laws of social 
life. 

And here should be noticed one marked j^eculiarity 
in the ethics of ancient Judaism, which is precisely con- 
tinued in the modern development of this primeval 
faith. No moral code has ever rested so profoundly on 
home duties and home ties — on the love of parent and 
child — as the Jewish has. The birth of a son is the 
highest reward for Abraham's faith. Paternal love 
almost makes a hero of Jacob, and gives dignity to a 
character which is otherwise furtive and mean. What 
is more tragic than the sorrow of Jephthah, what is 
brighter than the filial duty of Jonathan, what more 
touching than the grief of David over that rebellious 
son who inflicted on his father the most atrocious 
insults that could have been pei-petrated ? The 
Psalmist's picture of a pious and happy family, cf the 
laborious and contented husbandman, whose wife is as 
the fruitful vine, whose children are like the comely 
olive trees, full of assured promise, is a sketch, the 
nature of which is perpetually bright and fresh. The 
sorrows of Jeremiah are over wasted homes ; his deep- 
est grief is felt at the " children and sucklings swoon- 
ing in the streets of the city, who faint like the wounded 
in battle, and pour out their soul into their mother's 
bosom." The home was the centre of Jewish life^ the 
type of that archaic epoch when every man did that 
which was right in his own eyes, when Israel dwelt 
securely under his vine and fig-tree, of the golden age 
of the nation. Even now the Jew, with no little color 



62 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

of truth, complains that Christianity has exalted the 
monastic spirit, and disparaged home, and asks for the 
gain which social life has effected by this contempt of 
the natural affections. 

The sanctions of morality, apart from such evidence 
as can be gained from the expeiience of obedience 
and the blessings which such obedience entails, are 
found in religion. To yearn after the supernatural, 
and thereby to satisfy the longings of the soul — to 
address one's self to God, so that the weakness of hu- 
manity may be aided in achieving the great destiny 
which lies before it — to trust in God, that He can 
and will redress the evil and wrong-doing which blot 
His creation, — are the earliest and the most lasting 
religious instincts, and belong to every creed except 
those which exhibit the Deity as a remorseless and 
inevitable fate, or a capricious despot. Even ruined 
and debased religions may often be traced to a j^ure 
original. 

The Jewish creed recognized the long-suffering, 
the beneficence, the providence of God. He was the 
avenger of the helpless, the judge of the wicked, the 
protector of His people, the defence of His servants. 
He was surrounded by majesty, by light unapproach- 
able, by every symbol of awM power. But He 
deigned to visit men, to serve and save them. High 
as His dwelhng is. He humbles Himself to a watchful 
providence over man. He is King, Teacher, Father. 
This last title is, as we all know. His universal name in 
the New Testament. But it is not unknown or un- 



THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 53 

familiar in the Old. " Doubtless," says that prophet, 
whose writing has been incorporated with the sayings 
of an elder Isaiah, " Thou art our Father ; though Abra- 
ham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not, 
Thou, O God, art our Father, our Redeemer." The 
Paternity of God extends beyond the narrow range of 
human kindred or human patriotism. There was a 
bitter feud between Ephraim and Judah. It has even 
continued to our day, — is a feud of twenty -four cen- 
turies, — for the Samaritan is the wasted representa- 
tive of the Israelite kingdom, as he was in the days of 
Christ, as he was to Benjamin of Tudela. But there 
was one Father to both, —r to the worshipper at Jacob's 
well, and to the Pharisee of David's city. Nay, the 
outcasts of Abraham and Isaac, the men whom Ezra 
and Nehemiah scornfully rejected from the company 
of those who were restored after their captivity, could 
claim Him as their Father and Redeemer, exiled and 
maligned as they w^ere. 

The really Jewish scriptures contain no affirmative 
statement as to the immortality of man's soul. They 
are similarly silent as to that final judgment which 
forms so marked a characteristic in the religion of 
Christianity. We know that even when some of the 
later doctors of the Law taught the doctrine of man's 
immortality, other doctors were hostile to the tenet. 
Nay, even those who accepted the doctrine often qual- 
ified it by a wild metempsychosis. There are, they 
held, a certain number of created souls, which pass 
from body to body, and when their transmigrations 



54 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

are completed tlie Messiah stall come. This appears 
to have been the opinion of Josephus. There are 
traces of this compromise between the doctrine of 
man's immortality, and the absence of recorded au- 
thority on the subject, in the language of the gospels. 
The antenatal sin, which the blind man in the Gos- 
pel of St. John may have committed, is an illustration. 
Nor does the language of the New Testament contra- 
vene the more refined conception which was included 
in the theory of transmigration, that, namely, of a 
purifying process. There is a final day of judgment, 
but there is almost complete Bilence as to the inter- 
mediate condition of the departed. Once only Christ 
lifts the veil, and displays the rich man suffering, re- 
pentant, but not despairing. The spiritual Abraham, 
the father of all, does not address the lost as his sons. 
It is well known that the Jews were divided on this 
subject, — that the Pharisees accepted, under various 
fiDrms, the doctrine of the soul's immortality, of the 
enduring personality of the dead, and that the Sad- 
ducees rejected the doctrine, or at least held that the 
soul was absorbed into some general Intelligence or 
Power. It would seem that the former doctrine, 
which Christianity affirmed with peculiar emphasis, 
was adopted after the captivity, and that it formed a 
characteristic tenet of the stricter spirituality which 
the ascetic Pharisees taught. This tenet is an inevi- 
table consequence of the spiritual life. If men are once 
persuaded that the enjoyment of life is not its end, 
if they understand that man does not merely live 



THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 55 

to receive his just portion in those good things of ma^ 
terial existence which a beneficent Providence bestows, 
and a wise economy distributes and secures, they nec- 
essarily conclude that man's being is not bounded 
by his visible personality. It is, indeed, plain that 
the moral and intellectual progress of society is due to 
the effoi-ts of those who deliberately dafi" the lawful 
pleasures of life, in order that they may effect the gen- 
eral good of humanity. But neither the stimulus to 
this prodigious service nor its reward can be found in 
the satisfaction with which a limited existence could 
survey the unlimited good which it has effected. " If," 
says the apostle Paul, in that remarkable passage, where 
deep conviction struggles for eloquence, " our hopes in 
Christ are bounded by this life only, we are the most 
pitiable of mankind." It is not impossible to suffer 
patiently on behalf of a creed which offers no prospect 
but annihilation ; it is impossible to do bravely, to 
labor with unceasing and untired energy, to go about 
doing active good, and withal to believe that all this 
power and force, this concentrated influence which 
rouses and elevates the soul of a generation, and leaves 
permanent effects on the whole nature of man, is ab- 
ruptly terminated in an eternal negation. And as the 
doctrine of the soul's immortality begins with the de- 
velopment of the spiritual life, so it is intensified and 
confirmed by the determination to serve man for God's 
sake. The doctors who compassed sea and land to 
make one proselyte, could not but affirm that the soul 
which had enlightened his fellow-man in the knowledge 



56 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

of God partakes of the eternity which belongs to the 
Most High. The fruit of their labor may have been 
worthless, a mere growth of malignity and pride, a 
mere slavery to the letter, but the activity which is 
patient in winniug souls, no matter to what creed, can- 
not but believe in its own immortality. 

The leading tenet of Jewish teaching was the dig- 
nity of man. It is a tradition of the Rabbans that 
God said to Jacob, " I am the God of those on high, 
thou art the god of those below," — a legend derived 
from or confiimed by these words of the Psalmist 
which are quoted by Christ, as a patent justification 
of His claim to the Divine Sonship. The Kabbalists 
taught that the true habitation of God, of which tab- 
ernacle and temple were but types, was the body of 
man ; and they compared each member of man's body 
to some one or the other among the divisions of the 
building, placing the Holy of Holies in the heart. 
They extracted from this symbolism at once the duty 
of religious purity, and the obligation of charity, since 
the wound of one part in the mystical as well as the 
natural body is the suffering of all parts. And in the 
same strain, as if by way of comment on the decla- 
ration that man is created in the image of God, the 
Jewish doctors affirmed that "the soul of man is 
higher than the nature of angels ; that man is the 
counsellor of God in creation, His associate in the work 
of heaven and earth ; that he is the stay and foun- 
dation of the universe ; and that the angels desire to 
hold converse with the just, that they may learn of 



I 



TEE REOENERATION OF MAN. 57 

them the mysteries of the eternal God." And as the 
last favor which the Almighty grants His favored ser- 
vants, He deigns to let them know His incommuni- 
cahle name. It is in accordance with this highest 
mark of divine condescension and indwelling, that ac- 
cording to the Talmudists, the wonders which Christ 
did were due to the power which He possessed from 
the full revelation of what constituted that mysterious 
title. The same idea is current in Mohammedan 
legends. It is by the possession of that name that 
the great Solomon gained his empire over all creation, 
over men, and angels, over birds and beasts, over genii 
and devils. So, says Benjamin of Tudela, David el 
Roy, who claimed about the middle of the twelfth 
century to be the Messiah, and who thereupon stirred 
up the Jewish nation in the caliphat of Bagdad, 
exercised magical powers by virtue of the same rare 
knowledge. 

According to the teachers of the Talmud, the re- 
generation of man was due to the Eternal Word. This 
was expounded to be, " God incarnate in the Law, and 
continuing itself from age to age." Man is degraded 
by the sin of Adam, but restored by this Divine Es- 
sence, which permeates his heart and life, which through 
him purifies and restores the world and all creation. 
It makes man, by his own soul and will, by his own 
conscience, the first and chief, nay, almost the soUtary 
instrument of his own regeneration. How man may 
best facilitate the process is matter of teaching, and the 
details of the teaching are to be found in the works 



58 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

of the Jewish schoolmen. " The doctrine," says one of 
the latest expositors of Hebrew theology, " which most 
nearly represents the Jewish machinery of regeneration, 
is that which is known in Ecclesiastical history as Semi- 
Pelagianism — which admits the infirmity, the sinful- 
ness, of human nature, but which also conceives it 
possible that man may work out his own salvation." 
The redemption which the Word effects, according to 
this author (Ben-amozegh), is wholly internal. "The 
passion, the condemnation, the death, the garden of 
olives, the Praetorium, and Golgotha, are all internal, 
subjective facts, having for their theatre the spirit and 
heart of the man, where the Word sacrifices itself per- 
petually for the benefit of humanity, and on the altar 
which the man raises for himself" Man, in short, is 
self-made — the architect of his spiritual, as well as of 
his temporal fortunes — the sufficient master of his own 
eternal destiny. This seems like the teaching of Hegel; 
it is not far from the teaching of the Gemara. 

The Jew was encouraged in being profoundly na- 
tional. It is needless to adduce proofs of this fact, or 
of the endurance of the sentiment. That the national 
feeling was hardened by centuries of persecution is cer- 
tain; that it has been weakened by the development 
of toleration first, and of civil equahty afterwards, is no 
less manifest. That a few generations of justice will 
almost efiTace the characteristics of Judaism, may be 
safely predicted fi'om the conditions of human nature. 
The effort, which is now made to prove that the pecul- 
iar tenets of Christianity had their origin in the teach- 



JEWISH ETHICS NOBLE. 59 

ing of those Rabbis who flourished in the Asmonean 
epoch, reveals a different spirit fi*om that contemptu- 
ous hatred which retorted scorn on the savage persecu- 
tors of the Jewish creed. The comparative gentleness 
with which the Jewish theologian of the nineteenth 
century treats the mission and teaching of Christ is of 
another temper to that which induced the Spanish Jew 
in the twelfth century to speak of Jesus, in the phrase 
of the Talmud, as " that man " — as the disobedient 
prophet whom the lion slew. The Israelite of our day 
finds abundant authority in the writings of the He- 
brew schoolmen to warrant his assertion, that these 
sages taught the equality and fi-aternity of mankind. 
But it should be remembered that the reasonings of 
the teacher are no evidence of the temper which in- 
flamed the pupil, still less of the passions and fears 
which occupied rulers and people. The Rabban may 
be calm and tolerant, while the chief priests and elders 
are rousing the fury of an excitable populace. 

As the religious life of the earlier Israelite was com- 
plete without the tenet of the soul's immortality, so it 
was satisfied with such felicity as can be obtained by 
obedience to a moral law. The later apologist of the 
Jewish creed, as contained in the traditions and glosses 
of the Jewish schoolmen, may speak of human life as 
the vestibule — as the eve of the Divine Sabbath — as 
the time of labor — as the now, while eternity is desig- 
nated as the time of retribution — as to-morrow. " One 
whole hour," say the same authorities, " of virtue and re- 
pentance are worth more than all eternity — for eternity 



60 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

can give no more than the man brings to it, — and 
thus it is not without reason that Solomon said, 'a 
living dog is better than a dead lion.' " But the 
eternity is itself a gloss on the text. It takes its sub- 
stance ii'om the life of the man, not its color only. It 
is a Paradise — an Elysium — a garden of divine de- 
lights — an eternity of the land of promise. There 
have been ascetic Jews, as there have been proselytiz- 
ing Jews. But the tendency of the Jew is to be in- 
tensely active in the material occupations of life — to 
be cosmopolitan in his treatment of secular business — 
to know no country, no patriotism, no allegiance — 
nothing but obedience to the political institutions 
under which he lives, and the value of which he thor- 
oughly comprehends. " Throw no stone," says the 
Jewish proverb, " into the well from which thou hast 
drawn water " — implying that men should be respect- 
ful to the society which shelters them. Israel, if it be 
any thing, is an imperium in imperio. When it ceases 
to be an institution, it ceases to be a special creed — is 
dissolved into some one or the other of those creeds 
which are either rigidly monotheistic and iconoclast, or 
which are developments of the monotheistic tenet. If 
the time had been favorable to it — had any terms of 
compromise been found — Judaism might have been 
merged in some religion of antiquity, as it is likely that 
it was deeply colored by the monotheism of the Per- 
sian conquerors of Babylon, for the prophet speaks of 
Cyrus as the Lord's shepherd — as His anointed, and 
Daniel, the hero of Ezekiel's prophecy, is the chief 
of the magicians at Babylon. 



TEMPER OF MODERN JUDAISM. 61 

The Jews of the first century held that a pagan who 
confessed God, and kept the moral law, might be saved ; 
that Socrates and Plato would be in Paradise with 
Abraham, Isaac and Moses. Abraham, they said, was 
the first-born of the promise, only because he was the 
first proselyte. " I call heaven and earth to witness," 
says a doctor of the Law, "both man and woman, 
slave and free, Jew and Pagan, it is only by the works 
of man, that the Spirit descends on him." "Why," 
says another, " is there only one race of man ? It is 
that no man may say. My father and mother are greater 
than thine." And, to prove that these words were not 
without the confirmation of facts, we are informed, 
that the teachers of Hillel and Schemaiah were prose- 
lytes, that one of the great and venerated doctors was 
descended from Haman the Amalekite, another from 
Sennacherib, and others from Sisera; the legend typi- 
fying that Israel would not shut its doors to those who 
were the ofispring of the most hateful names in Jewish 
history. Nor was this welcome limited to strangers 
of illustrious learning and virtue. The prophetic au- 
thority of Zephaniah was cited as a proof that the final 
unity of mankind was part of the counsels of God. 

The Jew averred that the revelation of God in the 
Law was complete. " ' The Law,' indeed, was not com- 
prised in the Pentateuch only. This is the code of the 
Jews, their civil, political, ritual code — a monument of 
vigorous and manly genius, a system of which the ex- 
emplar is a characteristic, indestructible nationality. 
This code is ennobled and exalted by inspiration; it 



62 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

breathes with a moral, spiiitual, dogmatic vitality, 
which gives an intense energy to all its details, but it 
is only a code." It needs an interpreter. For a series 
of ages this interpretation was found in the teaching 
of the prophets, those sages whom God raised up in 
order to declare His will, or to announce His judg- 
ments. Sometimes these men, like Samuel, were 
brought up within the very precincts of the tabernacle, 
and lived daily within sight of the Shekinah. At 
another time, the interpreter of the age, like a Mara- 
bout or Dervish, appears suddenly from the desert or 
the mountain, clad in the rough dress of the Ishmaelite, 
and denounces the apostate king, or faithless people 
scorching them with the wrath of God, and zealous 
even to slaying. Another is the wise counsellor, the 
polished courtier, but one who never forgets his mission 
from the Almighty; who ejects a perfidious, idolatrous, 
murderous dynasty, substitutes a more obedient family 
in its room, and then counsels, warns, strengthens the 
monarch as Elisha does. Later on, the prophet is a 
still more important personage. He is called by no 
succession or ordination, but by the voice of God, by 
the Word of the Lord, by some inward warning, or in 
some ecstatic vision. He is a scion of the royal house, 
as Isaiah ; or a herdsman, as Amos ; or a priest, as 
Jeremiah — whose statesmanship was unavailing to 
save the falling throne of David against the headstrong 
king, and his more headstrong nobles ; or another 
priest, as Ezekiel, the captive in the land of the Chal- 
deans ; or the comforter of a ruined nation, who assures 



THE JEWISH PROPHET. 63 

them of God's sure though tardy vengeance on the 
enemies of Israel. He is sent indifferently to the re- 
volted house of Joseph, or to the faithful tribe of Judah. 
His mission is to awaken the conscience, to purify the 
heart, to call back the people to the God of their fath- 
ers, whom they have forsaken in word and thought. 

The nearest parallel to the Jewish prophet is to be 
found in those reformers who have set themselves to 
the task of turning, in some age of spiritual deadness, 
the hearts of erring children to the purer religion of 
their fathers. Such were Basil and Benedict, Francis 
and Dominic, Wiklif, Luther, Loyola, Wesley — men 
whom their own generation has intensely loved, and 
intensely hated, but who have assuredly stirred human- 
ity from its very depths, who have effected permanent 
revivals. In one particular, however, these men dif- 
fered notably from the Jewish prophets. They were 
ecclesiastics, not statesmen. They founded sects. They 
reformed the religion of their day, but they created an 
organization by which they fondly hoped that their 
spirit would live, their work be continued. But in the 
prophetic age, there was no place for a sect. The 
Jewish creed had few dogmas : it may be said to have 
had only one, — I am the Lord your God. The disci- 
pline of Jewish society was the perpetual interpreta.- 
tion of the letter by the spirit, in case the Law was 
perverted to unrighteous ends ; or more frequently the 
warning of the Almighty Word, the chastisement of 
the Almighty judgment on public and private sins. 
But it is impossible to found a sect except by dogmas, 



64 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

impossible to maintain one without a permanently- 
organized discipline. 

The open vision passed away. The Jews of the 
restoration entrenched themselves in sacerdotalism. 
They exacted evidence of ipnre descent from all those 
who were to partake of the ^^ri'^ilege of Israel. We 
are informed that this strictness led to the extensive 
forgery of pedigrees. They refused alliance with the 
Samaritans, and created a perpetual schism between 
themselves and their own kindred. They read that 
the Ammonite and Moabite should not come within 
the congi-egation for ever, and the Jews of Nehemiah's 
age expelled the children of mixed marriages from the 
nation. This rigorous nationalist forgot the permission 
which the great lawgiver gave that the settlers in the 
Promised Land might marry the women of the coun- 
try, and that the prince of the house of Judah was 
wedded to Rahab of Jericho. iSTay, was there not one 
woman, whose gentleness and love have made her for 
generations the type of perfect womanhood, and was 
not she a daughter of the accursed Moab, of the race 
which hired Balaam, and which made Israel to sin? 
And yet was not this woman also married to the chief 
of the house of Judah, and did she not become the an- 
cestress of David? 

The Rabbi became the successor of the prophet. It 
is probable that the school of this teacher was formed 
on the model of those academies in which the sages 
of Greece instructed their pupils. It was in such a 
school that the youthful Jesus was found, engaged in 



THE JEWISH RABBI. ^^ 

questioning the master, and answering those queries 
which the master put to his disciples. Such questions 
and answers, such sayings of the teacher, were handed 
down orally, and gathered at last into those commen- 
taries which are known as Talmud, or Gemara, or 
Kabbala. They formed that vast body of tradition 
out of which the Scribe and the Pharisee obtained their 
skill in casuistry, sometimes indeed using their knowl- 
edge to fortify the true interpretation of the Law, often 
as a power by which they might rule and oppress their 
fellows. 

There was, therefore, a continual commentary on the 
Law, which professed to be a revelation of its meaning. 
The Jew declared that this revelation was complete. 
The Christian declared that it was imperfect, or at best 
could only be interpreted by the commentary of the 
Gospel. The gist of the Epistle to the Hebrews is that 
the Son of God has revealed that which was unknown, 
has interpreted that which was obscure, has fulfilled 
that which was inchoate. The founder of Christianity 
asserts the high prophetic gifts of the Baptist, but puts 
him below the least in the kingdom of Heaven. " The 
Law," says the great Apostle, " was our schoolmaster, 
to bring us to Christ." It dealt with the age of child- 
hood : the Christian has come to the stature of a full- 
grown man. 

While the Christian claimed a full revelation, com- 
pared with which the light of Sinai was dim, and the 
utterance of the prophet faltering, the wild theogony 
of the Gnostics accepted the earlier revelation as com- 



66 PAUL OF TABS US. 

plete, but asserted tlie development of the Divine N'a- 
ture itself. They held, we are told, that the God of 
the Jews was an imperfect essence, both in his moral 
and spiritual nature, and that, his function over, he was 
succeeded by a greater, holier, and more powerful Being. 
It seems that this dreamy succession of supernatural 
existences was developed from the bosom of Judaism, 
if, as is commonly reported, Gnosticism has Simon of 
Samaria for its founder. It is supposed by most per- 
sons that it is to these transcendental genealogies of 
the Gnostics that St. Paul refers in his First Epistle to 
Timothy, and it is alleged that such an allusion casts a 
doubt on the authenticity of the epistle. The objec- 
tion does not, fbr many reasons, seem valid. M. Asher, 
the editor and commentator on Benjamin of Tudela, 
understands these genealogies to be the pedigrees which 
were forged after the captivity, which are, he adds, to 
be found in the book of Chronicles, and which were as 
apocryphal and silly as their modern equivalents. If 
this interpretation be correct, the Apostle is urging his 
disciple to discourage the A'anity of the Jewish con- 
verts at Ephesus, and thus is reaffirming the necessity 
for repudiating every tendency towards distinctive 
Judaism in a Christian church. 

The Christianity of the Apostolic age ran a double 
danger from Judaism. It had to withstand the furious 
animosity of those who regarded Christ as a deceiver, 
and His apostles as the emissaries of a pernicious and 
unpatriotic sect. It had also to resist the still more 
dangerous intrigues of those who insisted on conformity 



IMPERFECTION OF JUDAISM. 67 

to the Jewish ritual as a condition of membership in 
the new Church, who would have made the Jerusalem 
which is above, and which is the mother of all Chris- 
tian men, a mere cramped and narrow faubourg in the 
metropolis of Judaism. The bitterness of the former 
could find no stronger language of hatred than the 
words which the Jews addressed to Christ : " Say we 
not well that thou art a Samaritan and hast a devil?" 
— combining in the charge the intensest feelings of 
political and polemical rancor. The pedantry of the 
latter is the first example of that spirit which has per- 
petually vexed Christianity, in its attempts to coerce 
conscience by a rigid and implacable dogmatism. 
" Except ye be circumcised and keep the law of Moses, 
ye cannot be saved." This is the first of these anath- 
emas by which men have tried to fetter Christianity. 
Perhaps our own age has said the last. 

It has been said that in the administration of secular 
business, the majority should rule, the minority should 
influence. But they who are concerned with such 
business, are much more ready to affirm the former 
position than they are to allow the latter. In our own 
country, people very often attempt to coerce the minor- 
ity by calumniating its objects, and one of the common- 
est words used for this purpose is the term unenglish. 
Now, the nationalist party among the Jews might have 
called the converts unjewish. Heated by a narrow 
patriotism, they were ready to j^in the cry of the 
depraved rabble in the heathen cities, and stigmatize 
the Christian as the enemy of the human race, because 



b» PAUL OF TARSUS. 

his sympathies were comprehensive. Now, we need 
not be told that religious animosities are inconceivably- 
more bitter than political differences are. Men who 
will tolerate one whom they call a partisan are imj^lac- 
able towards another whom they are pleased to name a 
schismatic or a heretic. The modern Jew denies that 
he ever entertains, or that his race has ever entertained, 
religious enmities. The history of Paul's travels is 
abundant proof to the contrary. And yet Paul always 
abstains from that topic which invariably irritated the 
Jews to frenzy, — the charge, namely, that they had 
repudiated the teaching, and murdered the person of 
Christ. They hear him till he speaks of his mission to 
the Gentiles. He has only to avow this as the business 
of his life, and they strive to tear him in pieces, con- 
spire to assassinate him. 

It cannot be denied that the teaching of Christianity 
ignores patriotism. It ignores it, however, only because 
patriotism is transient, is inferior to the large purposes 
which can be obtained by evangelizing a federal hu- 
manity. The State is superior to the family, and asserts 
its claim to break up all domestic ties in view of the 
public good, for it sacrifices the father in the citizen. 
But it does not, except under this constraint, disparage 
the family; on the contrary, it cherishes and encour- 
ages the love of home. And, similarly, the claims of a 
federal humanity are stronger than those of patriotism, 
and, as civilization advances, the latter will be sacrificed 
if it clashes with the former. Patriotism is encouraged 
only as the school of a higher life. And, it should be 



CHBISTIJJSflTY AND PATRIOTISM. 69 

remembered, that if patriotism has given magnificent 
examples of self-sacrifice, of heroic devotion, of ardent 
courage, of noble enterprise, these very qualities have 
been called out because a spurious loyalty has armed 
the oppressor with a power which a true patriotism has 
sometimes successfully defied. But where, alas, could 
the preacher of the apostolic age find the material for 
patriotic impulse in the hopeless slavery of the Roman 
Empire? He is turned, perforce, to the civitas Dei. 
He does not, indeed, forget to prescribe the conduct of 
a pure and happy home. Between that and the spirit- 
ual kingdom there was a desert. If the Lord had not 
shortened those days, no flesh should be saved. 

The sacrifice of life, of home, of father and mother, 
of husband, of wife, of child, is demanded only as an 
alternative to the desertion of God. The State claims all 
these possessions ; if its own being is imperilled, often 
if its own pride is wounded, its ambition is unsated. 
And can God, whom all religion recognizes as the 
Author of all benefits, claim less than the exigencies 
of human society demand fi-om its citizens ? Is loyalty 
due to king, race, country ; is political unity a boon for 
which no sacrifice is too costly ; and is no hearty alle- 
giance due to the Father of heaven and earth ; is the 
maintenance of a universal gospel worth no sacrifice 
from those who profess to be the city of the Great 
King ? The closer, the tenderer, the more aflTectionate 
are the relations which religion afiirms to exist between 
man and his Maker, the more earnest must needs be 
the devotion of the former to the latter. It is the 



70 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

Paternity of God which is foreshadowed in the Old 
Testament, but which thoroughly permeates the New. 

The hostility which the Jews of the apostolic age 
entertained towards the Church was akin to that which 
the Jew of Palestine bore to the Samaritan. The en- 
mity which men are apt to feel towards those who 
swerve from some particulars of the faith, is far bitterer 
than that which they cherish against unbelievers. We 
have daily experience of such a temper among sectaries. 
And it is clear, notwithstanding the general affirmation 
of Jewish doctors, that there is not, and must not be, 
an eternity of punishment ; that the Christian reforma- 
tion is glanced at in the statement, that "he who pro- 
fanes holy things, who despises solemnities, who annuls 
our alliance with Abraham our father, who gives to the 
law a sense contrary to the true, who puts his neighbor 
to the blush in public — will have no place in the world 
to come." The zeal of Saul was shared by other zealots. 
High Priest and Council, Sadducee and Pharisee, were 
of one accord in the cry, — " Away with such a fellow 
from the earth." 

Still more dangerous, however, was the narrow con- 
science of the converted Jew. To him the ritual and 
discipline of Moses were the unalterable will of the 
Almighty. Departure from the covenant involved the 
terrible doom of anathema from his people, obedience 
to it was the peremptory condition of the Divine bless- 
ing and favor. Was it not written, that Moses, speak- 
ing by the power of God, warned Israel to obedience ; 
and did he not utter, on those who disobeyed the 



JEWISH OBJECTIONS. 71 

statutes and commandments of the Law, those terrible 
curses which are found in the last revelations of the 
Pentateuch? Had it not been by disobedience that 
Israel was scattered, impoverished, humiliated, en- 
slaved ? Had he not preserved his national existence 
by the righteousness of some, by the remnant which 
saved the race from becoming as Sodom and as 
Gomorrah ? Do not Law, chronicle, prophet, confirm 
this obligation ; is not Jewish history a continual con- 
solation to the faithful, a fearful warning to those who 
forget God ? Christ came to fulfil the Law : He ex- 
pressly stated that He was not here to destroy it. Can 
you, who were with Him from the beginning, — who 
were witnesses of His life, His death. His resurrection, — 
who had been appointed to this office by the Wisdom 
of God, by Him who knew whom He had chosen — can 
you recall any saying of His in Avhich he revoked the 
law of Moses ? For ages that law has made us a pecul- 
iar people, by it we have resisted an idolatrous world, 
through it we have known and worshipped the God of 
our fathers — can we abandon it now? How can we 
be one fold, under one shepherd, except by one obe- 
dience ? How can the Gentiles be raised up as children 
to Abraham, except they keep the covenant which was 
once delivered to the father of them who are faithful ? 
In something like this fashion, they who came down 
from Jerusalem must have argued at Antioch and 
Ephesus, in Galatia and in Crete, even after Peter had 
given his healing counsel, Paul had narrated the success 
of his mission, and James had uttered the terms of the 



T2 PAUL OF TABS US. 

compromise which the apostolic college proposed and 
authori2;ed. 

Even if the ancient Law had not been revealed with 
so much solemnity, supported by such sanctions, con- 
firmed by such examples, enforced by such warnings, — 
had it not made a nation illustrious, a page in the 
world's history luminous and real, — had it not twined 
itself so closely round the heart and brain of the Jew, 
— the mere habit of obedience to its precepts would 
have given it sanctity and majesty in the eyes of those 
who had followed it. To us, at this distance of time, 
it may seem strange that the Jewish ritual should have 
had such an overwhelming influence over the Jewish 
Christian; that he should not have eagerly embraced 
relief from observances which his forefathers could not 
bear, and which he had found oppressively onerous. 
But a little reflection will remind us of the tenacity 
with which men cling to forms, guarantees, rites, obh- 
gations, the origin and continuance of which are far 
less suggestive and intelligible than the unexpanded 
ritual of Moses, — which are as oppressive and unsatis- 
fying as the grievous burdens with which the Pharisees 
loaded men's shoulders, and which they made necessary 
to the Jewish salvation. 

But whatever may have been the attachment which 
the converted Jew felt towards the code of Moses, it 
was imperatively necessary that the Gentile convert 
should be freed from them. Even had he not resented 
the interference with his own mission, — had he not 
been indignant at an attempt to reconstruct the foun- 



JUDAISM REPUDIATED BY PAUL. 73 

dation of his gospel, — had he not been stn-red to 
denounce those, as he does over and over again, who 
were designedly creating schisms in the Christian com- 
munity, — Paul was too acute and far-sighted a man not 
to discern that the mission of Christ would be annulled, 
that Christ would profit the convert nothing, that He 
would be of no effect to mankind, if men suffered them- 
selves to submit to the bondage of Judaism. There 
was an immediate advantage in the conversion. This 
was the avoidance of persecution. If the Jewish Chris- 
tian could induce the Gentile proselyte to submit to 
the covenant, the hostility of the unconverted Jew 
would be disarmed. This, as we know, was the opinion 
of the apostolic college at Jerusalem, who persuaded 
Pa,ul to go through certain marked observances on the 
occasion of his last visit to Jerusalem. In the eyes of 
the great missionary they were of no importance. It 
was his habit to gain men's hearts, or to disabuse their 
suspicions. If his concession involved no sacrifice of 
principle, he was ready to conciliate Jew and Greek in 
non-essentials. 

Had the Christian converts allowed themselves to 
submit, it is not diflicult to see the consequences. The 
Jews would have had, could have had, no permanent 
difficulty in allowing the prophetic mission of Christ, 
and in permitting the formation of a sect which should 
see in Him the greatest of the prophets, the Son of 
God. Could they only have secured the perpetual 
supremacy of the Mosaic ordinances, they would have 
wilUngly acquiesced in the formation of a school which 
4 



74 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

should accept, affirm, propagate the tenets of the 
Nazarene prophet. They would not have been greatly 
offended had this school anathematized its rivals, or 
extinguished them, any more than the head of Koman 
unity was alarmed at the feud between the Dominicans 
and Franciscans, or at that between the Minorite friars 
and the endowed orders. Unanimity was not, is not, 
to be expected in the spiritual any more than in the 
material life, but uniformity may be demanded and 
must be insisted on. The question was : Shall Chris- 
tianity be lost in Judaism, or shall it assert its suprem- 
acy over the older covenant, by boldly claiming to be 
the successor of a defunct organization ? 

Familiarity with Jewish observances endeared them 
to the Jewish converts. But the acceptance of a pecul- 
iar and ineffaceable sign, the fact of which became 
especially notorious to the habits of ancient civiliza- 
tion, the obedience to a number of exact precautions 
against ceremonial defilement, which compelled the 
Jews to live apart from the nations with whom they 
sojourned, were conditions of church membership which 
were intolerably distasteful to the Gentiles. They were 
told that Christianity was a law of liberty, — a religion, 
the acceptance of which, forthwith, worked an instant 
purification from any taint which adhered to human 
nature, was a salvation by Grace ; and they were invited, 
nay, constrained by the threat of perdition, to submit 
to these strange rites. There were portions of the 
Jewish law which they could willingly adopt. " The 
habit," says Josephus, in his Apology for his nation 



CONTROVERSY ABOUT RITES. 75 

against the malignant calumnies of Apion, " of imitat- 
ing many among the rites of Jewish worship' is general. 
There is no city of Greeks or harbarians — no race of 
mankind — which is unfamiliar with the custom of keep- 
ing the Sabbath, of resting on that sacred day. There 
is none where certain of our rites are not observed — 
as fastings, the burning of lamps, and the avoidance of 
much that our law forbids. They affect," he adds, " to 
imitate our concord and liberality, our industry in the 
arts, our heroic resolution to die rather than abandon 
our law." The Jews did not establish an active proj^a^ 
ganda, at least in the capital. They knew the danger 
of attracting noble converts. In the nineteenth year 
of our era, the conversion of Fulvia, wife of Saturninus, 
to Judaism, — by the endeavors of some enthusiast, who 
persuaded his neophyte to send a great present to 
Jerusalem under the name of first-fruits, and who was 
charged with the intention of appropriating the offer- 
ing to his own use, — provoked a dangerous reaction 
from the toleration, and even favor with which Augus- 
tus had treated the nation. Four thousand of these 
Jews, say Josephus and Tacitus, were transported to 
Sardinia. The latter adds, that if the unwholesomeness 
of the island was fatal to them, it would be a cheap 
loss. Adherence to the tenets of Judaism, therefore, 
on the part of such converts as were of Gentile origin, 
though it might check the hostility of the synagogue 
and the Sanhedrim, would provoke the animosity of 
the prsetorium and the senate. The yoke was intoler- 
able, the obligation superfluous, the maintenance of the 
ritual obstructive and dangerous. 



76 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

The most superficial study of the Acts of the Apos- 
tles teaches us that this controversy was the earhest 
and the latest of which that narrative takes cognizance. 
The struggle commences with the mission of Peter to 
Cornelius, and the suspicion with which the chief 
apostle is treated — a suspicion which is disarmed only 
by the authority of a special revelation, and of a mira- 
cle, and by the testimony of the brethren who accom- 
panied Peter in his journey from Joppa to Csesarea. 
How it harassed the life of Paul is well known. It was 
the subject of long and anxious debate before the 
apostoHc college. It led to the arrest and imprison- 
ment of Paul. Even when he came a prisoner to 
Kome, he instantly anticipates that this unsettled 
question will follow him thither. He finds the Jewish 
residents ignorant of any specific charge against him, — 
perhaps because the bitterness with which he was 
assailed had been assuaged by his captivity. The men 
of Judea send no complaint. But elsewhere, every- 
where, his preaching is spoken against. Almost the last 
fact in this historic book of the New Testament is the 
declaration that the salvation- of God is sent to the 
Gentiles, and that they are to hear it. 

The attitude which Paul took in this question is, at 
first sight, ambiguous. It appears, though the language 
used is not perfectly clear, that the Apostle gave way 
in the case of Titus, not fii-om compulsion, but for the 
sake of peace. It is known that he spontaneously put 
this discipline on Timothy. It may be that when he 
sought, in the case of any among his disciples whom he 



PAUVS CONCESSIONS TO JEWS. 77 

wished to employ as missionaries, the authority or 
license of the apostolic synod, he conceded the point. 
It was his avowed principle to conciliate men by a con- 
cession in non-essentials. Christianity was a new crea- 
tion — the ceremonial characteristics, the observances 
of Judaism, were nugatory, antiquated, superfluous. 
Only, if some of the brethren still cherished them, he 
could not fight for trifles. To resist would stir up 
bitterness, and might prolong the existence of a senti- 
ment which time would weaken, and finally extinguish. 

But the case was very diflTerent when an attempt was 
made to exalt this sentiment into a rule of Christian 
life, as a condition precedent to salvation. The emis- 
saries of the narrower school had intruded on his 
special province, had raised the cry of Jesus, not Paul, 
in the place where Paul had labored, had taught 
another gospel, had questioned the authority of the 
Apostle's mission, had insinuated doubts of his ortho- 
doxy. Nor had this attempt been unsuccessflil. It 
had produced dissensions in Corinth. It had thor- 
oughly disorganized the Galatians, a people of Euro- 
pean origin, but who had been settled in the interior of 
Asia Minor for three centuries. This nation had once 
been the scourge of Asia, but had latterly become 
peaceful. Up to the fifth century after Christ, the 
country folk of Galatia still spoke with the Celtic 
tongue of their forefiithers. The people in the towns 
knew Greek, but were probably bilingual. 

These Asiatic Celts possessed the peculiarities of 
their race. They had strong religious feelings, and 



T8 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

high conceptions of moral purity, great quickness of 
apprehension, keen affections, loyal natures. The 
higher qualities of the Galatian race are illustrated by 
the story of Chiomara, mth whom Polybius had con- 
versed. She had been taken captive by a Roman, and 
had been made to endure the last insult by her captor. 
She was ransomed, but contrived, Hke Judith, to bring 
back to her husband the head of her ravisher, in proof 
of her conjugal fidelity and courage, of her unpolluted 
and heroic chastity. 

But, as these Galatians readily gave in to one set of 
religious impressions, so they as readily permitted their 
first impressions to be supplanted by others. They 
accepted the Apostle's teaching with warmth, as he 
preached to them during his intervals of sickness. 
And now, with the fickleness of tender and religious 
natures, they were terrified by the denunciations of 
these teachers of the narrow school, and were almost 
disposed to submit themselves to the despotism of the 
Law. They had given way in some points, had ah-eady 
consented to observe the ceremonial seasons of the 
Jewish calendar, were on the brink of sacrificing them- 
selves irrevocably to the claims of the Jewish covenant. 

To this emergency the Apostle addresses himself 
without hesitation. It is the occasion for a supreme 
effort. Unless he succeeds in crushing this apostasy, 
his mission is annihilated, his labors are vain, his gos- 
pel is repudiated. So he wrote to the Galatians a 
letter which has had a more powerful effect on the 
religious history of mankind than any other composi- 



PAUL AND TEE OALATIANS. T9 

tion which was ever penned, any other words which 
were ever spoken. It severed, conclusively, though not 
at once, Christianity from Judaism ; it declared the old 
revelation imperfect and transitory. It even pointed to 
a covenant older than that of Moses, older than any 
rite by which God had distinguished the objects of His 
promise. This manifesto was a final and deliberate 
schism, an act as defiant as the Confession of Augs- 
burg, and vastly more complete. At this distance of 
time, when the din of the first theological fight has 
long since been hushed, it is not easy to estimate the 
extraordinary boldness of this sally. Though written 
to the Galatians, it was probably pubhshed and dissemi- 
nated with great rapidity through the various Chris- 
tian communities. St. Peter, or whoever else was the 
author of the second epistle which goes under his name, 
might well say that there were things hard to be under- 
stood in his fellow-apostle's writings. The hardest 
thing of all, however, was to find an answer to the 
question which was put over and over again by the 
contemporaries of the Apostle, — How can a man who 
is a Jew, who is trained in the Law, who has profited 
much, as he says, in the religion of his fathers, utterly 
reject the authority of Moses, repudiate the code in 
which every Israelite glories, believe in Jesus, live 
for Him and be ready to sufier and die for Plim, and 
escape from the fatal doctrine that a new religion can 
supersede or render supei-fluous the foundation on 
which that religion is built? It is probable that the 
persons alluded to in the last chapter of the Epistle to 



80 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

the Romans were carrying on, in the church which 
Paul had not, indeed, founded, but which apparently- 
owed its origin to Aquila, the same interested hostility 
to that liberal teaching which characterized the Pauline 
gospel. The " Romans " must have contained a strong 
Jewish element, else it is unintelligible that the Apos- 
tle should have, in this particular epistle, argued so 
copiously from the Old Testament Scriptures, — more 
than half his quotations being found in this single 
letter. But, it is also plain, from the recital of heathen 
practice and from the reflections made on heathen 
morals, that the Church of Rome contained, at the date 
of this epistle, a strong admixture of Gentile converts; 
and, it is further plain, that the opinion boldly avowed 
in the Epistle to the Galatians, to the effect that 
Mosaism is superseded by Christianity, is strongly 
before the widter of the letter to the Romans. 

" I give you my advice," he says, " to take note of 
these men who are making divisions and stumbling- 
blocks, in contravention of the instruction in which 
you have been trained. Keep out of their way. 
Those people are no servants to our Lord Jesus Christ, 
but to their own belly, and it is by their fair speeches 
and plausibility that they deceive the hearts of the un- 
suspicious." The teachers of a narrow theology were 
fomenting differences under the pretext of a spurious 
uniformity. 

It is almost unnecessary to say that the Pauline 
Ethics are as stern and strict as those of any moral 
system which has ever been promulgated. The liberty 



PAUL'S ISOLATION. 81 

on which he insisted was no cover, no apology, no de- 
fence for license, for those wild and profligate excesses 
which the fanatic's faith has sometimes permitted. 
The extravagances of the Adamites, of the Cathari, 
of the Anabaptists, have been quoted as a reproach on 
the genius of Christianity. In reality they are homage 
to it. The claim of Christianity on the allegiance of 
men has been so strong, that they who have repu- 
diated its spirit have affected to call themselves by its 
name. The Israelites often fell into that idolatry 
which the Law denounced, chastised, condemned. 
But there is no reason to think that they forgot their 
nationality in their offence. 

The victory which Paul foreshadowed was not 
achieved in his life-time. In the latest of his epistles, 
— if the second to Timothy is from his hand, and no 
sufficient objection has, it would seem, been alleged 
against its authenticity, — his mind as still full of An- 
tioch, Iconium, Lystra, and of the perils which he 
endured in these places. All those who were in Asia 
were alienated from him, even the converts whom he 
had made, for whom he had labored, for whose sake 
he was in prison at Rome. Knaves and charlatans, as 
he asserts, — the grievous wolves whose mischievous 
activity he predicted so sadly at Miletus, — were doing 
their worst on the Christian flock, urging them to quit 
that liberty to which he had called them, and to adopt 
those ascetic fancies which would again bind them 
to Jewish practices. 

It has been suggested that the epistles ascribed to 
4* p 



82 PAUL OF TABSUS. 

James and Jude are attacks on the Pauline theology ; 
that in the Apocalypse the allusions to the Nicolai- 
tanes, in the message to the churches of Ephesus and 
Pergamos ; the condemnation of those who say they 
are Jews and are not, in the churches of Ephesus and 
Philadelphia, and who are branded with the name of 
the synagogue of Satan, — are reproaches cast on the 
followers of the Apostle of the Gentiles. The same 
criticism discovers in the prophetess whom the writer 
calls Jezebel, and who is expressly said to have se- 
duced Christians to idolatry, and induced them to eat 
things offered to idols, one of those female teachers 
who, like Lydia, Priscilla and many others, accepted 
and furthered the gospel of the Apostle. They who 
cannot or will not accept this interpretation may yet 
discern in these vehement denunciations that the 
writer of the Apocalypse detected laxity of life and 
doctrine in churches whose characteristic practices 
had become a monstrous caricature of the freedom 
which Paul claimed for his converts. 

Thus much at least is plain. The influence of the 
ascetic party was so strong, that although the destruc- 
tion of Jerusalem loosened the grasp of Judaism on 
the Church, the tenets of the Egyptian Therapeutae, 
and of the Syrian Essenes, offshoots of Judaism, — or 
more probably of that Buddhism which, as we learn 
from the Mahawanso, and the inscriptions which Cun- 
ningham has interpreted, was preached extensively in 
Western Asia, and Northern Africa, in the third cen- 
tury before Christ, — encouraged that gloomy auster- 



THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 83 

ity which was so characteristic of early Christianity, 
especially in its Southern and Eastern home. Of this 
temper Justin Martyr and Tertullian are types. It 
was in the western world that the genius of Paul was 
acknowledged and his gospel was adopted, for the 
western Church detected the polemical value of the 
Pauline writings when it began its struggle with 
the Gnostics. 

There is an epistle addressed, it is said, to the He- 
brews, which popularly goes under the name of Paul. 
No one, however, who is possessed of the critical 
faculty in its most rudimentary degree, can fail to rec- 
ognize that the wi'iting is none of his. The style of 
this pastoral is that of grave, easy argumentation, and 
differs totally from the abrupt, involved, and hyper- 
bolic manner which characterizes the Pauline com- 
positions. The language used is almost another 
dialect from that which the Apostle employed. The 
matter is an ingenious analogy between the ceremonial 
of the Jewish law, and the office of Christ as the Great 
Sacrifice. It might have been written by an Alex- 
andrian Jew, who allegorized in a Christian spirit ; by 
a converted Philo. The weight of tradition assigns 
its authorship to Apollos. Even in an early and un- 
critical age, it was seen that it did not proceed from 
Paul. 

The epistle was probably written after the Apostle's 
death. The writer informs his readers that Timothy is 
set at liberty, and that they pui-pose in a short time to 
visit those to whom the letter was addi-essed. No 



84 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

name but that of Timothy is found in the letter. The 
salutation from those of Italy seems to indicate that it 
was written from some town in that part of the Roman 
empire. But the writer gives no clew to his personality. 
It is likely that Timothy had obeyed the summons of 
Paul, and had shared his imprisonment, but that he 
had been liberated during the period which followed 
on the death of Nero, an occurrence which took place 
about a month after the reputed date of the Apostle's 
martyrdom. It may be added that the epistle contains 
fuller indications of a system of church government than 
any of the Pauline letters do, the teachers being twice 
bidden in the last chapter to remember and obey those 
who have the rule over them, an expression which 
easily squares with the government of the Church at 
Jenisalem, and of those which were founded on its 
model. But again, it would seem to be written before 
the investment and captm'e of Jerusalem, for it can 
hardly be conceived that any letter would be composed 
during that crisis of the nation's agony, and be whoUy 
silent on so terrible a subject. 

!N'o better defence could be found for the Jewish 
ordinal than the successful proof that it was a symbol- 
ical and prophetic ceremonial; and with those who 
held that the substance was given at last in Christ, no 
better method could be found for concluding that the 
necessity of the shadow was past. The excuse for a 
ritual consists in the position that the ceremony or rite 
presents a distant fact, or a transcendental force under 
the economy of some visible or sensible sign. Before 



SYMBOLS AND SHADOWS. 85 

the mind of the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
the priesthood and the sacrifice, the censer and the 
ark, the cherubim and the sanctuary, were the parts of a 
grand historical procession, the continuity of which was 
intended to be a perpetual reminder of some final con- 
summation in which these appointed synibols and 
shadows would be fulfilled and absorbed. Far away 
in the dim antiquity, was remembered the majestic 
figure of the king of Salem, to whom Abraham, the 
father of the faithful, the conqueror of the four kings of 
Canaan, did homage and gave tithes, the king of peace, 
the king of righteousness, who, in those primeval times, 
united the functions of priest and monarch. This great 
memory was powerfully impressed on the mind of the 
Psalmist, who contemplates an eternal priesthood after 
the similitude of Melchisedek, the mysterious hierarch 
of whom no father or mother is recorded, no genealogy 
given, who appears in the midst of an idolatrous and 
licentious people, and disappears after he has blessed 
the great patriarch. Who can this be, implies the 
writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, unless some heav- 
enly visitant, like them who conversed with Abraham 
at the door of the tent of Mamre, him who wrestled with 
Israel, and whose name was sacred, him who appeared 
with a drawn sword by the wall of Jericho as captain 
of the Lord's host ; who, in short, but the eternal Son 
of God ? Here is the perfect, the perpetual priest, who 
has not only entered into the holiest place before the 
vision of God, but has invited those who believe on Him 
to behold the same glory. 



86 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

And then, to show that an unchanging purpose 
shapes the counsel of God throughout, the writer of this 
epistle enumerates the victories of faith under the older 
covenants, from the days of Abel to that army of wit- 
nesses whose exploits and endurance are told in so 
fervid a strain of passionate eloquence, as the memory 
of those ancient heroes passed before the mind of the 
enraptured allegorist. l^o thing is more consummate 
than the art of this passage ; for, while it keeps present 
the fact that the coming of Christ is the abrogation of 
the imperfect symbol, it consoles the Jewish believer 
with the glories of his race, and suggests greater 
triumphs, under the reign of the King and Priest whose 
throne endures for ever in heaven. 

The law of Christ and the law of Moses are one, only 
the former is more exact and absorbing than the latter. 
To do despite to the former is a capital offence; to 
scorn the latter, and its great sanctions, is to invite an 
angrier judgment — a speedier wrath. To apostatize 
from this more perfect law, is to repudiate the place of 
repentance — to sin like Esau — to fall into the hands 
of the living God — to draw back unto perdition — to 
provoke a consuming fire. But to them that beheve, 
Sinai has lost its terrors ; and in place of the mountain 
from which the law proceeded, there is the pleasant 
prospect of the divine Zion — the city of God — the 
Jerusalem of heaven, as the prophet Ezekiel foresaw it 
in vision — the Sabaoth of angels — the Church of 
the eternal First-born, of the Divine Judge, of the per- 
fected spirits of the just. 



CHAPTER III. 

\ S races have come to nought, have been ruined or 
-^^^ destroyed, — as regions, which were once the 
gardens of the earth, have become deserts, — so theol- 
ogies have become extinct. Three of the most notable 
among these forms, whose antiquity is extremely re- 
mote, and which existed when Christianity began its 
career, still survive. These are the creed of the Jews, 
that of Brahmanism, and that of Buddhism. The last, 
which is, nominally at least, the most widely embraced 
of all faiths, is said to be nearly six centuries older than 
our era. 

Again, some religious systems have utterly perished. 
No trace survives of the theosophy and ceremonial of 
Greece, Rome, Egypt, Phcenicia. Zeus, Jupiter, Apollo, 
Phoebus, Athene, Minerva, — the myriad divinities of the 
Greek and Roman Olympus, — are as extinct as the most 
remote geological fauna. So with Isis and Osiris, Anu- 
bis and Thoth, and the infinite series of Egyptian 
gods. The Theogony of Phoenicia, — Dagon, Ashta- 
roth, Baal, have become mere names, the memorials of 
which have perished with them. 

Some have survived, but are wasted into extreme 
feebleness. The ancient reli<rion of Zoroaster is said 



88 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

to exist in the Parsee colony of Bombay, among the 
scanty and expatriated relics of a race which was for- 
merly great and victorious. The Druses and Yesidis 
are the representatives of some ancient Gnostic relig- 
ion, once probably as wide-spread as any of the 
Eastern beliefs. The few Israelite sectaries who still 
linger at Nablous are the remains of that Samaritan 
schism which began with the revolt of Jeroboam, was 
embittered by the rivalry of Tobiah and Sanballat on 
the one hand, Nehemiah and Ezra on the other, and 
which was strong enough in the time of Christ to be 
intensely detested by the Jewish national party. But 
all these religions are crumbling away, and perhaps in 
a few generations each will become historical. 

It has been stated more than once in these pages 
that the Christian religion was nearly absorbed by 
Judaism at the beginning of its career, and that on 
grounds of human probability it was about to become 
an obscure Jewish sect, when it was rescued by the 
vigor and independence of the great missionary- 
apostle. Paul saved it from this catastrophe, by the 
peremptory manner in which he insisted on the abroga- 
tion of the Jewish code, as far as Gentile converts 
were concerned ; and Paul was ultimately successful in 
the bold course which he adopted. But the effort was 
a supreme struggle. It cost the Apostle a life-long 
martyrdom, and for a time discredited his labors and 
his success. The attempt to supersede the Jewish rit- 
ual excited the warmest hostility. The success of the 
attempt thrust the Church into a new danger. Paul 



THE GNOSTICS. 89 

saved it from being stifled. He lived, it appears, to 
see it exposed to the attacks of a more ubiquitous and 
more vei-satile enemy. In the East, at least, it was 
nearly supplanted by Gnosticism. It was threatened 
and even imperilled by the equivalent of Gnosticism in 
the West. 

For a century and a half the Church struggled for 
existence against the numerous and frequently hostile 
sectaries who were known under the general name 
of Gnostics, and who, as will be seen, held certain ten- 
ets in common. By far the largest part of that con- 
troversial theology which has descended from the 
earliest Christian times to our own is occupied with 
the statement and refutation of these Gnostic reveries. 
The existence of such opinions is alluded to by Justin 
Martyr. The work of Irenseus consists almost entirely 
of statements purporting to give an account of the 
tenets entertained by the various heresiarchs of the 
Gnostic theogonies. The lately discovered work of 
Hippolytus, bishop of Ostia, is, for the most part, a 
treatise on Gnostic opinions. The greater part of Ter- 
tullian's works are controversial, and deal with the 
same tenets. During the days w^hen Christianity was 
in its infancy, men did not construct creeds, or elabo- 
rate definitions on the nature of Christ, and on the 
work of redemption ; but either accepted the simple 
faith of the apostolic teaching, or exhibited a prodigious 
theogony, which they collected from all sources, and 
arranged into the most fantastic systems. Never did 
the reli^rious imacrination run wilder riot. At the same 



90 PAUL OF TABS US. 

time, it is not impossible to trace those theories to a 
few simple principles. These principles were recog- 
nized in and before the age of St. Paul. 

In eastern Iran, and in that part of it which the 
ancients knew as Bactria, there lived, at a time which 
it is now impossible to fix with any degree of certainty, 
a certain Zoroaster. Some facts about the life of this 
personage, and an exposition of the doctrine which he 
taught, are contained in the Zendavesta — a scripture 
written in an ancient Aryan dialect. Zoroaster is the 
reputed founder of the Magian religion. The charac- 
teristic of this creed is dualism — i. e.. the existence of 
two powers, principles, beings, of co-ordinate and nearly 
equal authority — one of whom is Good, the other 
Evil ; one the author of every blessing which lightens 
the lot of humanity, the other of all and every misery 
v/hich depresses and degrades it. These two powers 
are in constant rivalry; and although the beneficent 
spirit will and must finally vanquish his enemy, and 
the enemy of the human race, the struggle is long, 
arduous, and as yet far from its completion. The name 
of the Good Being is Ormuzd, that of the evil Ahriman. 
Lately deciphered inscriptions prove that the system 
of Zoroaster was the state religion of the Persian peo- 
ple. To Darius, for example, Ormuzd is the author 
of all prosperity, victory, blessing, and is reverenced 
accordingly. Both Ormuzd and Ahriman were emor- 
nations from Primeval Light. But Ormuzd was the 
elder, and Ahriman was ambitious, proud, and jealous 
of the first-born. These faults are an impersonation 



THE PAJRSI BELIOION. 91 

of the vices and the vindictiveness of those who, in an 
Eastern dynasty, are near of kin to the ruler, but are 
subjects to him, and are thereupon suspicious and sus- 
pected. Such persons were Smerdis to Cambyses, 
Cyrus the younger to Artaxerxes. 

The principles of the Zoroastrian or Magian religion 
are to be found in the Scriptures of the Parsees, who 
are reputed to be the surviving worshippers of the an- 
cient Persian Deity. If we can trust slight hints given 
in those relics of a faith which was once accepted by the 
highest civilization of Central Asia, the oldest parts of 
the Zendavesta point to the existence of pastoral habits 
among the people to whom Zoroaster was the prophet. 
The greater part of the Zend scriptures treat of ceremo- 
nial defilement and purification, and are even more 
minute in the rules which they lay down for the atone- 
ment of voluntary and involuntary offences than the 
Mosaic ritual is. It is possible, however, that many of 
these regulations have been interpolated. That the 
religion suffered by the conquest of Alexander cannot 
be doubted. It is said to have declined during the 
Parthian occupation of Iran, and to have been restored 
by Ardshir in the third century of our era. This mon- 
arch, the first king of the Sassanid dynasty, did for the 
Scriptures of the Zoroastrians what Peisistratus did for 
the Homeric poems : he collected them from the mem- 
ories of those who treasured them into the volume 
which we know by the name of the Zendavesta. When 
the Persian empire was overrun by the followers of 
Mohammed in the seventh century, a few of the adhe- 



92 ' PAUL OF TARSUS. 

rents of Parsism escaped to India, and obtained permis- 
sion, under certain conditions, to settle near the mouth 
of the Indus. 

The creed of the Persians was that of a dual mon- 
archy. But the good king was surrounded by a hie- 
rarchy of powers whom he had created. Chief among 
these were six amshaspands, then twenty-eight other 
powers, one of whom was Mithra, and then an infinite 
order of pure spirits, all of whom were superior to man. 
On the other hand, Ahriman, the evil power, created an 
infinite number of dewas, who are presided over by six 
evil dynasts. Ormuzd is the creator of the world — a 
work which he effected in six periods of time. In this 
new world, Ormuzd placed a man and woman, who are 
corrupted by the wiles of Ahriman. But, when the 
earth is most depraved and afilicted, Ormuzd will send 
his prophets, the chief of whom will regenerate creation 
and bring it back to its pristine beauty, power and 
purity. Thereafter will ensue a universal resurrection, 
and the chief prophet will judge both good and bad. 
Then those who are found pure will Hve in eternal 
felicity. And, on the other hand, Ahriman, his demons, 
and the wicked will be also purified, but by a torrent 
of molten metal. In the end, the reign of Ormuzd will 
commence its uninterrupted course, humanity will be 
perpetually happy, and all will be engaged in singing 
the praises of the Supreme Being, the Ancient of Days, 
the King of Light. 

In this, life, man is always exposed to the machina- 
tions of the dewas and their chief They who fall 



AH RIM AN AND SATAN. ^6 

into sin become the habitations of evil spirits, and are 
finally transformed so as to be identical with the de- 
mons with whom they have consorted. But the door 
is never closed to repentance and faith, however great 
has been the sin, even though its ceremonial lustrar- 
tion is impossible. Furthermore, to know the names 
of Ormuzd is a power, a talisman, with which to chase 
away demons, and coerce the wicked. These names, 
which were revealed to Zoroaster, and are contained in 
the Zendavesta, are twenty in number, and designate 
the attributes of the Supreme Being. The name Or- 
muzd — in the Zend, Ahura-mazda — means the great 
wise God. His rival's name, is Anramainyus, or, as it 
has been corrupted by Europeans, Ahriman. 

One cannot fail to see a close parallel between this 
Zoroastrian system and the theosophy of the Jews. 
The angel of God appears frequently in the earlier 
books of the Jewish canon, though there is hardly any 
such agency in the Mosaic epoch. But the operation 
of an evil spirit is scantily hinted at. We first read of 
such a personage in the story of Saul's madness. "We 
read of him again, in the apologue of Micaiah, when this 
prophet stood before the misguided Ahab. We read 
of Satan in the book of Job, the scene of which is not 
Jewish, but Arabian. 

This name Satan — that is, an adversary or an enemy 
— is used in Hebrew with the article when it denotes 
the superhuman adversary of man. So Zechariah, one 
of the later prophets, uses it, after the return from 
Babylon, and therefore when the conception of a spirit- 



94 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

Tial foe had become familiar to the Jewish exiles. But 
elsewhere throughout the Old Testament, the evil 
spirit is only a subordinate instrument of Jehovah, a 
power whom God permits to deceive the reprobate, to 
torment the sinner, and to try the good. 

In the New Testament, however, but particularly in 
the Apocalypse, this personage is recognized as an ac- 
tive malevolent being, who seeks to thwart the designs 
of the Almighty, and to pervert the souls of m.en. He 
is permitted to tempt Christ, and his satellites torment 
the bodies and distract the minds of those whom they 
inhabit. He is the prince of this world, the power of 
the air, the f xther of the disobedient and unfaithful, the 
enemy of the saints, one who disguises himself as 
an angel of light, the hinderer of holy purposes, the 
prompter of impure and unholy thoughts, the devourer, 
the destroyer, and, hereafter, the inhabitant, with his 
angels, of everlasting fire. In the Apocal}^se he is the 
leader of a rebel host, who fights against Michael and 
the angels of God, the dragon, the serpent, the prisoner 
for a thousand years, who is afterwards set fi-ee to har- 
ass and vex the faithful, but who will finally be judged 
and punished. Out of his mouth came those lying 
prophets who have power to deceive men. He has 
a mystic name, which is designated by a certain num- 
ber, and is probably made up of the numerical values 
of the letters composing it, as those names, Abraxas, 
Mithras, and Belinus were; the symbolic genii of 
Gnostic, Persian, and Druidical worship. 

The Rabbinical books of the Jews and the writings 



THE CHRISTIAN AND JEWISH SATAN. 95 

of Philo are full of the same facts, for they refer to 
a hierarchy of angels, evil and good — to the benefi- 
cent action of the one, to the malevolence of the other. 
The Pharisees, Ave are told, acknowledged angels and 
spirits, the Sadducees denied the existence of each 
order. Thus the Gemara even said that the tempta- 
tion of Abraham vras a deed of Satan, the rescue of 
Isaac an interposition of Jehovah, and a bafiling of the 
enemy. In the romance called the book of Tobit, the 
machinery of the story is the mission of an angel, who 
should accompany Tobias on his journey, should de- 
fend him and his wife from the machinations of Asmo- 
deus, who had previously slain those husbands to whom 
Sarah had been w^edded, and should bind the evil 
spirit in the utmost parts of Egypt. 

No one can ignore the fact that the Old Testament 
recognizes, and that its teaching is based on, the per- 
petual antagonism of good and evil — of the struggles 
and ultimate victory of the former, of the power and 
final punishment of the latter. But, while it exhibits 
infinite goodness under the form of a heavenly Father, 
it does not impersonate the opposite principle except 
slightly and imperfectly. Nor, unless we repudiate 
every rule which would guide us on any other subject 
when we are discussing the affinities of an opinion or 
belief, can we doubt that this impersonation of the 
evil principle in a chief of wicked spirits and in his 
subordinates, was derived from, or suggested by, the 
Zoroastrian theology. The Jews had been carried cap- 
tive into Assyria and Persia, and had been brought in 



96 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

contact with this religion when it was in its full vigor. 
Daniel, a descendant of the royal house of David, was 
the chief of the Magi, receiving a name — prince of 
Bel — by virtue of his eminent position in the priest- 
hood of the Zoroastrian system ; while another Jew, a 
companion of his, was called the servant of Nebo. It 
was possible for those Jews to retain their worship of 
the one ti'ue God in the midst of Aryan theism, for the 
Persians were not idolaters. It was possible for a 
Jewish prophet to recognize a Shepherd in Cyrus, and 
even to call him the Lord's anointed. But it is impos- 
sible to doubt that the Jews who lived in Persia 
borrowed and transmitted to the returning exiles of 
Zerubbabel, Nehemiah, and Ezra, some of the dualism 
with which they were made familiar at Susa and at 
Babylon. Even when Parsism was depressed by the 
Parthian dynasty, the Chaldean was known at Rome, 
and the Babylonian Numbers were consulted by noble 
ladies at the metropolis of the empire. 

When a new religion, however pure and powerful it 
may be, supplants another, it can hardly help making 
some compromise with its vanquished enemy. It is no 
disgrace to Western Christianity, that it conciUated the 
Paganism which it overthrew, by accommodating its 
feasts to the cherished memory of ancient rites. Thus 
we are told, that the Christmas festival was fixed at 
the winter solstice, because this period was occupied in 
the Roman calendar by the Saturnalia — a holiday time 
in which the rigor of slavery was relaxed, and the 
bondsman was permitted a short liberty. Nor can any 



PARSI INFLUENCE ON JUDAISM, 97 

one object that the episcopate was founded on the 
model of those fiscal and military divisions which the 
empire defined. Church government was found to be 
a necessity, and men adopted familiar forms for carry- 
ing out what was to be done. This kind of compro- 
mise accounts for the fetish worship which the Roman 
church has revived and inculcated in the reverence 
paid to relics, and for the rationalism which has given 
the peasantry its local saints, instead of Nymphs and 
Dryads ; which has made the mother of Christ a Juno, 
and, like her pagan prototype, which has multiplied her 
by the shrines in which she is worshipped. Not even 
the stern monotheism of the Mosaic code could extir- 
pate fi'om the Israelite mind all sympathy with the 
worship of the Hittite. The high places remained; 
the returning ark, welcomed by the Israelites, found 
them gathered at Beth-shemesh, the house or temple 
of the sun ; and the house of Jacob constantly associ- 
ated itself with the gods of the nations round about. 

The influence, however, of a religion which guides 
the life and practice of a great and generous nation, 
such as the ancient Persians undoubtedly were, cannot 
fail of being felt in a still gi*eater degree by subject 
races. Besides, the Zoroastrian creed was not repug- 
nant to the mind of the captive Israelite. The com- 
panions of Daniel refuse to honor an image ; the 
chief of the Magians, the eunuch of David's race, de- 
clines, on peril of his life, to obey the insidious sugges- 
tion of the courtiers of Daiius, and still prays to his 
God, with his windows open in the direction of Jeru- 

5 G 



98 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

salem, three times a day. But the hierarchy of Zoro- 
aster — in which angels were subordinated to the one 
great Deity — was no way alien to Daniel's orthodoxy. 
Nothing pleases the imagination more than to people 
the vast expanse with ministering spirits, to ascribe 
the sorrows and sufferings of life to the spite of malig- 
nant demons. It is the familiar habit of children to 
conjure up thick coming fancies ; and at this epoch — 
the childhood of civiHzation and behef — the same 
energy of imagination delighted in the exuberant growth 
of these divine and pure emanations, and constructed, 
as antagonists to them, a host of gloomy and passion- 
ate spirits, who strove to drag men down to their 
own likeness, but who could be resisted, baffled, judged 
by the wise and pure in heart. To one wrapt in the 
contemplation of this war in heaven, of which man 
was the prize, and of which the victory was finally 
assured, there was no solitude. The lonely hermit was 
least alone. To one who had in view the pomp and 
majesty of eastern royalty, there was a far nobler and 
grander array in the glorious host of heaven, in that 
angehc band, the power of the lowest of whom was 
greater than that of the mightiest king, for they are 
the servants of the Lord of Hosts. The counterpart to 
this regal splendor is the pomp of faded majesty, the 
royalty of hell. Just as to the eastern mind, a good 
and wise king, such as Cyrus, — the father of Persian 
nationality, who had for his attendants an immortal 
body guard, — was the highest exemplar of human 
excellence and beneficence; just as a furious, mad, 



CREEDS OF THE EAST AND THE WEST. 99 

suspicious tyrant, such as Cambyses, was the imperson- 
ation of malevolence and mischief — so the unseen 
world had its King and His heavenly host, and also its 
regal fiend, with his attendant demons. The Israelite 
eagerly engrafted the two systems on his national creed, 
and, already made familiar with the angels of God, 
discovered their antagonists in the gods of the heathen, 
in the devils of the Pauline epistles, in the evil spirits 
who possessed those unhappy men who fell under their 
sway. The same dualism has been transmitted to our 
times, and has become part of the system of popular 
religion. It is so strongly intertwined with the inner- 
most sentiments of the human heart, that the imagina- 
tion itself must be extinguished before dualism ceases 
to be acknowledged. 

The creed of the East was a supernaturalism, with 
an exact ceremonial, typical of personal holiness, and 
a strict discipline which imposed penances or punish- 
ments on those who violated its moral precepts. The 
creed of the West was the worship of nature, without 
any permanent ceremonial, and with no higher moral 
code than was absolutely necessary in order to preserve 
society from dissolution. The supreme ruler of the 
Zoroastrian world is a pure spirit to whom sin is loath- 
some. The ruler of the Greek Olympus is the pres- 
ident of an aristocratical council, a capricious, sensual 
chieftain, whose providence over human affairs is of 
the slightest and most uncertain kind. "With a strange 
perversity, men — misled by the dazzling splendor of 
Greek genius — have tried to discover in the theogony 



100 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

of the Greek creed, and in the social life of which it is 
the highest exemplar, a lofty and simple morality. 
They have mistaken poetry for religion. The civiliza- 
tion of Greece, and subsequently that of Rome, were 
extirpated, because neither was based on religion or 
morality. 

The border-land between the East and the "West 
was occupied by the Jews. It appears that nature 
worship was nowhere more sensuous than among the 
Phoenicians of the coast. The God of the Hebrews is 
absolutely spiritual, absolutely holy, and, as the con- 
ception of Him is developed in the prophets, is a Being 
of perfect justice, who prescribes and enacts obedience 
to a Law, which is to be interpreted by an intelligent 
and scrupulous conscience. The creed of the Jew is 
a single sentence, — I am the Lord your God. Upon 
this creed the Pharisee induced the dualism of the re- 
mote East, while the Sadducee insisted on retaining 
nothing but the secularism of the Mosaic revelation, 
in which the immortality of man's soul might be con- 
tained by implication, to which it certainly was not 
repugnant, but by which it was not expressly aifirmed. 
The Sadducee, however, was as monotheistic as the 
Pharisee, believed as rigorously that the Almighty was 
a pure Spirit. 

The teaching of Christianity was welcome to the 
religious sense of the western world. Its acceptance 
enabled the believer to escape from the immeasurable 
grossness of nature-worship, to take refuge in a pure 
theology, to apprehend that for which every creation 



EASTERN AVERSION TO CHRISTIANITY. 101 

groans and struggles. In those days of conversion, 
men fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, and cast their 
abominations of silver and gold, which they had made 
to worship, to the moles and to the bats, to the dark- 
ness of that night from which they had emerged. To 
them Christianity was emphatically a new creation. 
Old things had passed away, all things had become 
new. It was an escape fi"om bondage to freedom, to 
a glorious liberty, and was welcomed with all the fresh- 
ness of a first enthusiasm. 

The case, however, was diflferent with the eastern 
people. They had already a religious creed, which 
taught that God was a Spirit, and that they who wor- 
ship Him must do so in spirit and in truth. They 
were monotheists, iconoclasts, haters of symbolism, 
and of nature-worship. They had lived for ages un- 
der traditionary customs w^hich no one was prepared to 
loathe, under rites which had been sanctioned by the 
same authority which had given them their purer 
creed. Hence, as has often been said, the Jewish 
Christians clung tenaciously to the traditions of their 
forefathers, and nearly wrecked the prospects of Gen- 
tile Christianity, by peremptorily insisting on obedience 
to the Law of Moses. Even when some liberty was 
given, they insinuated that those who claimed re- 
lease from Jewish rites were enemies to the spirit of 
Christianity, and the secret advocates of a compromise 
with idol-worship and licentiousness. As with other 
Eastern converts, there was an unwillingness to abandon 
those gorgeous visions with which the unseen world 



102 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

was peopled, and to accept those simple practical prin- 
ciples by which, the Christian life was to be guided. 
In the West the Magian was an adventurer; in the 
East he worshipped at the foot of the infant Jesus, 
was the hierophant of transcendental revelations, the 
mystic, the gnostic, the man possessed of knowledge, 
the knowledge which inflated a man with a sense of 
self-importance, the knowledge which the author of 
the epistle to Timothy designates as falsely named. 

This Gnosticism was born at a time when the hu- 
man mind was more eager after belief, and more ready 
to construct systems, than at any epoch in its history. 
It ofiered the most energetic and the richest visions to 
the believer, and it is not marvellous that it had many 
teachers and a vast following of disciples. It extended 
itself widely through the eastern world, and affected 
not a little of the western. Its symbols are still exist- 
ent in great numbers in the form of gems, engraved 
with composite emblems and legends. It was a for- 
midable rival of orthodox Christianity up to the sixth 
century, and unquestionably leavened it with many of 
its speculative formularies. It did not expire in Europe 
till just before the Reformation, if indeed its influence 
may not be traced still later. It constitutes the occult 
science of Cornelius Agrippa. The description which 
Mr. Layard gives of the tenets entertained by the 
Yezidis clearly indicates that the religion of these 
devotees can be traced to a Gnostic origin. The 
Gnostics were, in their own language, according to 
Gesenius, the Elect, and a sect which calls itself elect 
is apt to have a long vitality. 



CHARACTERISTICS OF GNOSTICISM. 103 

The fundamental characteristics of Gnosticism are 
its dualism, its doctrine of emanations, its assertion 
that the God of the Jews, the God of the visible crea- 
tion, was an inferior, if not an evil spirit. The schools 
of Gnosticism differed in many particulars, but they 
invariably affirmed the three doctrines stated above. A 
supreme intelligence exists, an eternal, immutable inef- 
fable being, against whose purity and power evil is 
arrayed, and from whom proceed the various forces 
by which evil is combated. And as these visionaries 
thought matter was evil, — a doctrine which may be 
traced in the philosophy of Greece, — they believed 
that the creator of the visible world was either uncon- 
scious of the mischief which his creation would work 
on the intelligence which it coerced or restrained, or 
that he spitefully weighted the pure spirit of man with 
the gross and polluting burden of matter. Hints of 
this theosophy are found in the Septuagint, in Philo, 
in the Kabbala, in the significant w^ords of the first, 
in the allegorizing theory of the Law, which marks 
the second, and in the emanations of Adam Cadmon, 
the typical or perfect man, the macrocosm to whom the 
individual is the microcosm, of the third. Ten of 
these emanations, according to the Kabbala, proceeded 
from the perfect Adam. The same authority, according 
to M. Matter, affirms that the parts of man's nature, 
his appetites, his passions, his reason and his spirit, 
proceed from the four worlds of angels which influ- 
ence and control him. This fourfold division of man's 
inner nature is characteristic of Greek philosophy. 



104 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

Abundant illustrations could be given of tbe manner 
in which Gnostic phraseology pervades those writings 
of the Canon, which are expressly dii-ected against the 
doctrine which those dreamers inculcated, most of all 
fi'om the Apocalypse. Here the seven spirits, the 
twenty-four elders, the Alpha and Omega, the mystic 
number of the Beast, are all counterparts of that theoiy 
of emanations which began with Cerinthus, and was 
completed by Valentinus and Marcion. But the use of 
certain Greek words is even more suggestive of the 
manner in which the language of the apostles was per- 
meated by the phraseology of this wide-spread and ver- 
satile school. The reader may find examples of these 
usages in the elaborate work of M. Matter. The Shep- 
herd of Hermas, once believed to be a canonical book, 
is framed on a Gnostic model, with its seven women 
representing the Virtues who wait about the Church. 
The writers of the l^ew Testament do not, it is true, 
accept the theory which these words imply, — nay, 
they are impliedly, or, in express terms, profoundly 
hostile to the Gnostic hypothesis, — but they could not, 
in the existing state of theological language, avoid the 
employment of terms which the speculative temper of 
the Eastern mind had appropriated and characterized. 
These words might have been perverted by the wild 
imagination of the sectaries, but they had the advan- 
tage of being definite, and what philosophy has ever 
disdained to spoil its rivals of their annor ? 

The narrative of an interview between St. Peter and 
Simon is contained in the Acts of the Apostles. The 



SIMON OF SAMARIA. 105 

latter is described as resident in Samaria, though he 
was, according to Justin, a native of Gitti, a village 
near. This man, by his magical arts, had deceived the 
people of Samaria, who called him the great power of 
God — which is, by the way, a Gnostic formula. We 
are further told that Simon enrolled himself among the 
converts of Philip, and that the apostles came down to 
Samaria to receive the converts, and, by imposition of 
hands, to bestow on them the Holy Spirit. Thereupon 
Simon offered the apostles money, with the request that 
he might receive the apostolic privilege of conferring 
this gift of the Spirit. He is sternly rebuked by Peter, 
who bids him repent and ask for forgiveness ; and the 
narrative, as far as Simon is concerned, is concluded by 
a request on Simon's part, that the apostles would pray 
for him, that no misfortune should come on him for his 
presumption. Henceforth, the Scriptures make no 
mention of the Samaritan. Another Magian confronts 
St. Paul in Paphos, is more severely reprimanded, and 
is visited with a sharper judgment. 

The rest of Simon's history is enveloped in a cloud 
of fable. Justin Martyr says, that he persuaded the 
Emperor Claudius and the senate to erect a statute to 
him on the Tiberine Island, the apologist having mis- 
taken a dedication to a Sabine deity for an inscription 
in honor of the Samaritan. But Simon figures in a 
host of legends. He is present at the interview 
between Peter and Paul on the one hand, and Nero on 
the other, and is represented as perishing in an attempt 
to fly. He raised himself in the air by the aid of evil 
5* 



106 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

spirits, and fell in consequence of the prayer of Peter. 
In the Clementines, Peter and Simon are represented 
as arguing together. But, in the whole literature of 
the early Church, the Samaritan Magian is made the 
founder of a system which claims to be antagonistic 
to Christianity. He is not properly an heresiarch, but 
a rival to Christ, as Apollonius of Tyana was, after the 
adventui-es of the Tarsian devotee had been manipu- 
lated by his biographer Philostratus. 

Simon, according to Irenseus, claimed to be the voice 
of God. The supreme Being was " He who is fixed," 
"the root of all things." From this Being emanate 
three pairs of derived^ beings, one of which is the 
mother of all that exists, — spirits, angels, and arch- 
angels. This personage is Ennoia or IntelUgence, who 
is perpetually persecuted by evil spuits, and is pre- 
served by the Supreme Being, in order to be manifested 
«to mankind by the agency of Simon. The Jewish God 
was one of the angels of this Intelligence, and was the 
author of the visible world. Irenseus adds to his 
account of Simon, that his followers, a century and a 
half later, had fallen into gross hcentiousness, and 
excused their vices on the ground that there was 
neither morality or immorality in external acts. It is 
only by his dualism that Simon is identified with 
Gnosticism. 

The sect really sprang out of Chi'istianity. The 
earliest Gnostics came fi'om Eg)'pt, and were familiar 
with the allegories of Philo. With Ceiinthus, Christ 
was the son of Joseph and Mary, and as a man was 



.THEORIES OF GNOSTIC WRITERS. 107 

superior in justice, foresight, wisdom, and therefore 
power, to all other men. He received the Divine 
Nature at His baptism in the Jordan, and was there- 
upon an emanation from the Supreme Being. 

Marcion, the most eminent of the Gnostics, was, we 
are informed, fond of quoting the saying of Christ, 
"Put not new wine into old bottles." He meant to 
imply that those Christians who had been familiarized 
with the grand complications of the Eastern theogony 
must needs incorporate their profound and magnificent 
conceptions with the simple creed of the Apostles. 
The Gnostic was unwilling, on being admitted within 
the sanctuary of the new covenant, to strip himself of 
his gorgeous traditions ; he must needs enter clothed 
in them. They are susceptible of a spiritual intei-pre- 
tation. They are revelations anterior to this last 
experience of the Divine development, but they can be 
made to harmonize with Christianity. Some of those 
persons allegorized the mythology of Greece, and dis- 
covered ^ons in the Olympian deities, allowing their 
imagination to run riot in the strangest theories as to 
the meaning of Greek myths, and the origin of Gen- 
tile practices. Some of these interpretations are as 
grotesque as the latest allegory of the Homeric poems, 
under which the heroes of the Iliad are impersonations 
of the Sun and Moon and Stars, of Nature, of Night 
and Day, of the Seasons and the Winds. 

Let us take the scheme of Saturninus. God, says 
this Gnostic, is one, unknown by all, ineffable, inacces- 
sible. The Gnostic is less exacting than some writers, 



108 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

who have told us that the attributes of the Almighty- 
are utteriy unknown to man, and that the divine moral- 
ity conforms to no human standard or experience. He 
allows that all beings, with their attributes, proceed 
from Him by way of emanation. 

The highest power of God is His Wisdom or Word. 
This is the first-born Son of God, the ideal type by 
which the most perfect of all creatures, man, is created 
and formed. But the creation of man was committed 
to an inferior power — the Jewish God. He had re- 
ceived a mission to make man in the image of God, 
but in error he did not realize the Divine type, the 
heavenly Adam. Man was created a creeping thing. 
The Word, as pitying his unhappy condition, bestowed 
on him a ray of Divine life. But so feeble was the 
work of the inferior God, that the breath of the Word, 
by which humanity was enlightened, became powerless 
to efiect his restoration to the Divine image. Christ 
therefore came down from heaven to put an end to the 
ojSice of the Jewish God, and to save those who be- 
lieve in Him — those, namely, who have preserved that 
ray of Divine hght which was given to the first man, 
and transmitted to his descendants. The moment they 
have lost the ray of Divine light (and they lose it by 
the overmastering influence of evil spirits), the way of 
return to God is irrevocably closed. This heresiarch 
forbade his followers to contract marriage and beget 
children. 

Bardesanes, one of these Gnostics, the chief of an- 
other sect, who wrote against Marcion, was the author 



THE GNOSTIC IDEA OF QOD. 109 

of the first Christian hymnal. We are told that he 
composed a himdred-and-fifty sacred songs, which were 
set to music by his son, and were used by the orthodox, 
to their danger and detriment, till Ephrem the Syrian 
superseded them by other words, the tunes being 
retained, just as the English pietists of the last century 
adapted religious words to secular music. Nor is there 
much doubt that the ascetic Montanus, who won over 
the arrogant and fervid spirit of Tertullian, gathered 
his strange notions of the Comforter from the example, 
if not from the teaching of the Gnostic sects, who 
represented every form of mysticism, from antinomian 
grossness to ecstatic and morbid rigor. 

We know these grotesque doctrines only through 
those who detested them, stigmatized them, and per- 
haps caricatured them. It is to be regretted that no 
single work has come down to us from those who taught 
what they called knowledge. Had such been our for- 
tune, we might perhaps have been able to construct 
the system of these Syrian and Alexandrian mystics, 
and, however alien the scheme might prove to our 
habits of thought, have discerned that Valentinus, 
Basileides, Bardesanes, Saturninus, had at least as well 
ordered an imagination, as noble a conception of God, 
as rational a hagiology as those of many men who 
have challenged and obtained the reputation of ortho- 
doxy. 

This, however, at least is clear. The Gnostic idea 
of God was pure and even sublime. But the concep- 
tion which assigns the work of the visible world to a 



110 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

malignant deity, because the Gnostic cherished an 
insane hatred of matter ; the savage temper which dis- 
cerns nothing in creation but misery, disorder and vice, 
and vrhich shows its contempt for the body by fierce 
austerity, — or gross licentiousness, are grotesque mis- 
conceptions of that Providence which these enthusiasts 
allowed. Worse still was that sullen pride which lim- 
ited the office of the Redeemer to a privileged race, to 
a few individuals, capriciously chosen, whose grant of 
this election was certified to them by some inward con- 
viction, and was perfected by an absorbing contempla- 
tion ; which, without the evidence of personal holiness, 
or the fulfilment of personal duties, transported them 
to the bosom of God ; which, finally, asserted that the 
nature of the true Gnostic is like gold, the brightness 
of which no pollution can dim, no contamination affect. 
But, though the name of Gnostic, of Catharist, or 
Paulician, has faded away under the anathema of 
orthodoxy, it is doubtful whether the spirit has been 
exorcised. It is still possible for men to narrow Al- 
mighty beneficence, to arrogate to themselves redemp- 
tion, to think that austerity is holiness, that an inward 
assurance is the Divine favor, to look bitterly on the 
beauty of God's creation, and see nothing but what is 
evil in nature, even though they may not people the 
world with JEons, and make their own system of belief 
a series of emanations from the Almighty and infallible 
exposition of His will. 

We are told — though it is probable that the state- 
ment must be taken with caution — that the Gnostics, 



I 



GNOSTICISM A CLAIM TO SCIENCE. Ill 

and particularly Marcion, accepted a mutilated gospel 
of St. Matthew, though with some additions, and most 
of the epistles of St. Paul, the pastoral letters being 
rejected ; but that even those whose authenticity was 
allowed, were curtailed or interpolated so as to sustain 
the doctrines which Gnosticism affirmed. It is signifi- 
cant of the extent to which these tenets permeated 
Christian communities, that the Ebionites and Naza- 
renes — the bitterest enemies of the great Apostle, the 
persistent advocates of Jewish Christianity — are stated 
to have finally embraced the extreme Gnostic doctrine 
of a particular redemption, and the perfectibility of 
man by asceticism and contemplation. We are told 
that they said of the Redeemer, that " He was called 
the Christ of God and Jesus, because no one before 
Him had fulfilled the Law ; but that if another had done 
so, he could have been Christ, and that they, by doing 
the like, would become christs, since He was a man 
like unto themselves." This wasted sect of Judaizers, 
who lingered on by the Dead Sea, was still open to the 
temptation which other sects have fallen into, and 
which are characterized by St. Paul in one of his 
pithiest and most prophetic sentences — Knowledge 
puffeth up, but love buildeth up. 

The essence of the Gnostic system, whatever were 
the formularies with which it introduced its dogmas, 
was the saving power of knowledge or science. It 
matters nothing that the material of this knowledge 
was a long array of subjective or imaginary essences, 
the " bodiless expansions of a cunning ecstasy." They 



112 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

were, if we can believe that the votaries of this system 
propounded them all in good faith, as real to the Gnos- 
tic as the laws of nature, or the succession of geologi- 
cal epochs, or the development of species are to the 
physicists of our own day. The Gnostics wished to 
give an interpretation to a set of facts, or to an array 
of myths which had been accepted as facts, and believed 
that they had gained the key to their solution, by mar- 
shalling a progressive development of heavenly entities. 
They believed that by the steady contemplation of 
these great realities, the soul of man might be educated, 
ennobled, purified, glorified. The knowledge which 
they possessed separated them from the vulgar and 
perishing herd of men, made them the elect of a Divine 
wisdom, delighted them with the ravishing dream that 
they were the peculiar objects of the Divine favor, the 
self-made possessors of a saving science. The spirit of 
,the Gnostic is found, not in what he knew, which a later 
philosopher declares to be visionary, but in the utter 
absence of that love of man for the sake of God, which 
is the practical side of religion, and of that clinging to 
a Divine ideal of moral excellence, and perfect holiness, 
which constitutes the contemplative side of the same 
rehgion. 

There need be no antagonism between the religious 
sense and scientific method. A clear and keen intelli- 
gence, which observes diligently, and draws careful in- 
ductions from its observations, is quite compatible with 
that sensitiveness which stimulates and strengthens the 
sense of public and private duty, because it lives in the 



RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 113 

sight of God, and does its part in regenerating and 
purifying man for God's sake, according to its power. 
There is not, and there cannot be, any natural discord 
in the constituent faculties of man's being. All the 
forces which make up the identity of the individual 
may be, and ought to be, in harmony ; may be made to 
assist each other in the work which each man has to do. 
In true and healthy minds such a hai-mony does exist. 
Nothing is more graceful, nothing more winning than 
the union of acute intellectual power, and the tender 
gentleness of an affectionate desire to do good, because 
the heart yearns after purifying and elevating the ob- 
ject of such goodness. Nor does experience lack ex- 
amples of so noble a conjunction of energies. 

But, as the religious sense may, unhappily, become 
harsh and bitter, may be perverted by narrowness, by 
spiritual pride, by sinister motives ; so men may insu- 
late themselves under a feeling of profound satisfaction 
at their own attainments in knowledge, and of con- 
tempt for those who are unequally instructed with 
themselves. Any kind of learning may suffice to effect 
this perversion, for the Gnostic professed to possess the 
highest and truest learning with which his age was 
supplied, and this on the most important and absorbing 
subject. The temper of the Gnostic does not cease to 
influence men, because the sciences of observation have 
superseded in exactness and interest the constructions 
of the Gnostic imagination. Any kind of knowledge 
may serve to inflate its possessor with an over-weening 
sense of his own acuteness and superiority. It may be 



114 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

the dry theory of the economist, according to which 
men are conceived to be held together by mutual inter- 
est, and individualized by an enlightened selfishness; 
or the method of nature, the knowledge of which may 
fill the student with a modish conceit of his own quick- 
ness ; or learning ; or philosophy. It may be impossible 
to construct a logical religion, and to give proof of the 
emotions by which man clings to a living God. But 
the religious sense, if it be just and loving, at least does 
this much. It binds men more closely together than 
any other force can; it gives, as long as it reigns in 
man, cohesion and duration to the unity which it cre- 
ates ; it constructs and purifies society ; it makes man 
reverent towards his fellow-man, pitiful, tender, forgiv- 
ing, courteous, graceful, gentle. If it dies or is per- 
verted. Society becomes a camp, in which distrust is 
perpetual and panic is imminent ; in which the enemy 
is at the gate, and the spirit of resistance is gone. So, 
at least, experience, past and present, informs us. It is 
possible, that, at the instant of this ruin, Archimedes still 
sits, poring over his problem, unconscious of the crisis, 
indiff*erent in the midst of his speculation to the crash, 
the havoc, the despair. After the agony is over, the 
same sentiment will, unless a people be utterly lifeless, 
revive and renew the strength which has been wasted, 
and men will eagerly welcome the force which has 
hitherto been found to constitute the very soul of hu- 
man society. 

After all, the highest, worthiest, truest of all human 
knowledge, is that which is directed towards purifying 



TEE NOBLEST SCIENCE. 115 

and ennobling man. He who discovers the knowledge 
of this method, and, having discovered it, seeks to 
make it the law of social life, is the wisest savant, the 
truest teacher of mankind. The worth of the knowl- 
edge which analyzes a plurality of worlds is not dis- 
paraged when it is said that it is of little import by the 
side of that wisdom, if it can be found, and that under- 
standing, if its place can be detected, which makes man 
happier, and stronger, and better. The greatest victo- 
ries of science are little better than a thaumaturgy, if 
they have no effect on the well-being of society. They 
may become the instrument of conceit to him who wins 
them, the instrument of oppression to him who uses 
them. But, on the other hand, it is impossible for a 
science of social morality to make true progress, imless 
the whole race of man is bettered by it. It is impossi- 
ble that it should influence mankind without making 
each successive generation stronger and more just. 
Like every other good force, it may be misused by de- 
signing persons, or parodied by charlatans, who mislead 
men into accepting the husk of a true wisdom, in place 
of its fruit. Whether Christianity has or has not finally 
achieved this science of social life, is a larger question 
than can be discussed here. But it is plain, that Jesus 
of Nazareth intended to propound such a science, that 
the Apostle of the Gentiles intended to affirm and ex- 
pound the science, and that the permanent enemy of 
Christianity is the theory that the knowledge of God or 
nature, and the blessings of God or nature, are the heri- 
tage and privilege of the few, the elect, the fortunate. 



116 PAUL OF TAESUS. 

Critics have detected traces of the Gnostic system 
in the pastoral epistles, and have, thereupon, discred- 
ited their authenticity. It is known that Gnosticism 
ripened in the early part of the second century, and it 
is inferred that the " falsely-named knowledge " of the 
First Epistle to Timothy is a reference to the Emana- 
tions of these sectaries. But the language of the 
Apostle is not necessarily directed against those whom 
we know as Gnostics. It seems rather to point to 
those Jewish or semi-Jewish sects, which are known 
to have sprung up in the cities of Asia-Minor, and to 
have attempted a compromise between the learning of 
the Rabbis and the tenets of Christianity, or, at least, 
to have overlaid the latter by the former. The Apos- 
tle was reasonably jealous of any addition which might 
be made to the simple creed which he had taught ; for 
he well knew that nothing deadens the sense of reli- 
gion so much, as the reduction of it to a set of formal 
definitions, the acceptance of which might be construed 
into an equivalent to that energy of faith and love, 
which his instincts and his experience assured him were 
the true constituents of the Christian temper. 

Besides, though Gnosticism culminated in the second 
century, it does not follow that it was not existent, and 
even active, in the first. The earliest Christian con- 
troversialists give us the names of the Gnostic savants, 
but they do not expound to us the origin of the Gnos- 
tic temperament. If the exposition given above is 
satisfactory, Gnosticism, in some shaj^e or other, is not 
of one age, but of all — is not the title of an extinct 



3 



THE GNOSTIC TEMPER PERMANENT. 117 

theology, but the equivalent of a permanent phase of 
human thought. That men busied themselves with the 
origin of evil, and recognized its antagonism to good, 
in a formal dualism, long before the apostolic age, is 
historically certain. That they had constructed a cos- 
mogony on this principle is equally clear. That they 
had, according to the fashion of the time, realized the 
development of the universe by impersonating creative 
power in a series of angelic beings, is as plain as proof 
can make it. But this is only the shell of Gnosticism. 
Its kernel is the substitution of theology for trust in 
God, knowledge for religion, contemplation for duty, 
philosophy for love. The system of the Stoic and Pla- 
tonist, as critics and rivals of Christianity, was only 
another phase of the same theory — was equally the 
substitution of the individual mind for the body of 
Christ, and the growth of the perfect man — the peace 
of the absorbed and enlightened intellect for the peace 
of God — the salvation of the few, by their own power 
and holiness, for the redemption of the world by the 
Passion and the Presence of Christ. We ought to be 
far from wondering that the Apostle detected and in- 
veighed against this tendency. It is rather to be won- 
dered at, that his writings do not contain frequent 
allusions to the danger in which, from his point of 
view, men might make shipwreck of their destiny in a 
vain and engrossing self-sufficiency. The early Church 
did recognize such a warning in the Apostle's state- 
ment, that the natural intellect of man does not receive 
the influence of God's Spiiit. 



118 PAUL OF TARSUS, 

Nor is there reason to think that the genius of Gnos- 
ticism is extinguished or evaporated, or that it ever 
will fail to assert itself in its own domain — that, 
namely, of exclusiveness, of spiritual or intellectual 
pride. It is true that no one now busies himself in 
constructing a dualistic hierarchy, or fills heaven, and 
earth, and hell with the fancies of an unrestrained im- 
agination. The steady progress of phenomenal science 
— the regular method by which it has built up its in- 
ductions — the success with which it has interpreted 
the order of nature — have made men contemptuous 
towards imaginary systems, and sometimes even scep- 
tical as to the existence of other than sensible forces. 
The cosmogonies of the Eastern sage, of the Greek 
philosopher, of the Western schoolman, have given 
way to the logic of facts, and the laws of nature which 
they exemplify. Those exploded theories were at- 
tempts to interpret the phenomena of Being ; and for 
a time, at least, satisfied and delighted the mind. But 
they are abandoned only because other attempts have 
been made to interpret the same phenomena. Ptol- 
emy retreats before Copernicus and Galileo; the 
scheme of elemental forms, by which i^ristotle at- 
tempted to interpret nature, has been superseded by 
the chemical analysis of modern research ; the humoral 
theory of physiology, by which the same philosopher 
tried to account for growth and decay, for health and 
disease, has been abandoned for a microscopic investi- 
gation into the circumstances of organic generation; 
creation is the formula of a bygone speculation, of 



PROBLEMS OF THE OLD THINKERS. 119 

which development has latterly become the scientific 
equivalent. 

The thinkers and reasoners who lived before and 
after the commencement of our era were constantly- 
busied with the philosophy of Being — with the laws 
of consciousness and nature — with the conditions of 
progress and change. To account for all those phenom- 
ena of sense and cognition, they invented a world of 
imaginary existences. Thus, for example, the appetites 
and passions, the reason and the spirit of man, were 
derived, according to some of these Mystics, fi*om 
the four worlds of spirits. The characteristic words 
of this system are traceable even in the Septuagint 
— its terms are freely employed in the New Testa- 
ment. 

Childish and trifling as the system which these men 
constructed seems to us, it satisfied them. It enabled 
them to account for all they saw, knew, and felt — to 
give an exact and formal account of creation, and of 
the facts of nature or life. Deeply enamoured of their 
genealogies and cosmogonies, they wrapt themselves 
up in their contemplations — stood aloof from inter- 
course with the unenlightened world without them, 
and limited the possession of knowledge to those who 
were, like themselves, engaged in solving the problems 
of creation or development. Sometimes ascetic, some- 
times licentious, but always for the same reason — be- 
cause the body was only an accident to the spirit or 
intelligence of man — they lived in an atmosphere of 
spiritual and intellectual pride. It is Gnosticism in its 



120 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

rudimentary form, or in its tendency, which Paul con- 
trasts with love in the First Epistle to the Corinthians. 
Gnosticism, in some shape or other, was invariably 
adopted by the heresiarchs of the first three centuries, 
as we see from Tertullian ; and it was into an analo- 
gous creed that this father of the Latin church ulti- 
mately seceded, for the Paraclete of Montanus closely 
resembles " the great power of God " of Simon, and 
the mysterious Pleroma of Basileides. 

" This people," says the Pharisee, " who know not 
the Law are cursed." The creed of the Gnostic was 
that of the Pharisee, without his Judaism, without that 
sense of nationahty or patriotism which saved the 
Jewish devotee from being absorbed in the worst of 
egotisms — a belief in his own spiritual perfection, and 
a scorn for the mass of those who live outside the 
region on which the rays of divine light have shone. 
They who had learned the Law and its interpretation 
were harsh and fanatical, zealous for the maintenance 
of that empu-e which they possessed over the minds of 
their countrymen; but they did not forget that the 
nation was chosen as well as themselves, or repudiate 
the election of Israel in the ascendancy which they 
claimed for their own authority. They believed them- 
selves to be an aristocracy of intelligence and education, 
but the collective Israel was as a nation, the soldier 
of God. 

The seeker after, wisdom, the Gnostic who inserted 
Jesus and the Gospel into his eclectic creed, believed 
that some men were illuminated, but that the gi'eat 



PAULINISM AND GNOSTICISM. 121 

majority of mankind were consigned to impenetrable 
and unilluminable darkness. It was a favorite dogma 
of these idealists, that some were elect, and others 
reprobate. It is true that the Gnostic did not give 
himself up to a cold and apathetic fatalism, but de- 
manded from those who were conscious of their elec- 
tion a fervid energy of the soul, which must be ever 
directed towards that Being from whom the illumina- 
tion was derived. But he was the God of intelligence 
as opposed to the God of creation, insulated in his sym- 
pathies, haughtily indifferent to a woiid of sorrow and 
ignorance. The knowledge or wisdom which is not 
combative contributes little to the forces of human 
progress, is not the wisdom which is from above, be- 
cause it does not aid in regenerating or redeeming 
mankind. 

It has been stated that Gnosticism was the chief 
enemy with which the nascent church contended. It 
is almost certain that, in order to meet this enemy, the 
Pauline doctrines were affirmed by the western and 
accepted by the eastern churches, and that the rancor 
which the Jewish Christians entertained against the 
great Apostle was finally transformed into the rever- 
ence which has been for so many centuries felt towards 
him, as the great doctor of the primitive church. Mar- 
cion accepted his Catholic epistles, though in a muti- 
lated form. What better weapon could be found to 
fight against these Mystics than the authority which 
their principal advocate recognized? Judaism was 
repudiated in order that Pharisaism might be combated 
6 



122 PAUL OF TABS US. 

An effort, indeed, is made to proscribe Paul and the 
Gnostic under the same name, and, by the agency of 
Peter, in the imaginary discourses which are still ex- 
tant under the name of the Clementines ; but the effort 
failed. 

The fantastic theosophy of emanations, aeons, essences, 
and powers — the system under which logical formu- 
laries were represented as objective realities, and exhib- 
ited as a pedigi'ee, which originated in a primeval pair 
called " depth " and ." silence " — could have had no 
permanent influence on mankind, deserved no vitality. 
Even if this philosophy had rested on a real founda- 
tion, it would have done nothing towards the moral 
progress of mankind. No growth of mere speculative 
opinion has ever assisted in the development of virtue 
or morality, though such opjnion may have, indirectly, 
retarded both. Man is the better by what he does, not 
by what he knows. The clearest and most confident 
avowal of belief may be, as we all know, unaccom- 
panied by worthy service. Men may hide God's talent 
in their own napkin, keeping the talent diligently all 
the while, and even boasting of its possession. There 
is no theory more false than that which asserts that 
opinion and religion, belief and virtue, always co-exist ; 
or, that those who cannot assent to a doctrine must 
needs fall short in the practice of godliness. But it is 
true that an opinion may be in itself immoral, because 
it contravenes, either directly or indirectly, that moral- 
ity which lies under every religious life, or because it 
supersedes hearty obedience to it. To trust in God, 



POLITICS AND RELIOION. 123 

and to do His will are the faith and obedience of the 
Gospel. In the absence of this faith and obedience, 
the true and the false in theology are equally virtueless. 
There is no allegiance to a definition, no loyalty to a 
formulary. Both are tendered to a Person and a 
Power, and are invariably offered on grounds which 
recommend themselves to the reason and the affec- 
tions. 

In the early age of Christianity, there was no field 
for that political action which may be powerfully allied 
with a great religious movement. The social life of 
mankind was, as we all know, governed by a jealous 
and irresistible miUtary despotism, fi'om which no one 
could escape. An attempt was made to maintain a 
religion and a nationality in the Jewish war. It failed 
after a prodigious effort, and Judaism was proscribed. 
To Christianity the importance of this event was enor- 
mous. It finally severed the new religion fi-om the old, 
and transferred the centre of the Church fi'om Syria to 
Italy and Egypt. But, even if the teaching of the 
early Christian fathers had not proscribed all resist- 
ance to constituted, or de facto authority, the example 
which the ruin of Jewry afforded would have been 
quite sufficient to deter the Christian Church from any 
organized hostility to the civil and military power of 
Rome. 

Such an alliance, however, as that between political 
acti'on and religious zeal, has been effected from time to 
time. This was the characteristic of Islam, and is the 
explanation of its amazing success. It accounts, also, 



124 PAUL OF TABS US. 

for the force which Calvinism exercised during the 
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Men were not 
won over to the creed of the Geneva reformer by the 
attractiveness of the doctrines which he taught, but by 
the means which he employed to assist in spreading his 
creed. He appealed to republican sentiment — to that 
passion for political liberty which is always keenest 
when men feel the oppressiveness of institutions which 
cease to challenge their attachment, and to which they 
are no longer proud to be loyal. The most supei-ficial 
glance at the history of the religious struggle, — in 
France, where Calvinism ultimately failed ; in Scotland, 
where it triumphed ; in England, where it ended in a 
compromise, — will detect how closely a political was 
intertwined with a religious movement. It may seem 
a .paradox, but the great convulsion of the eighteenth 
century, which we call the French Revolution, was the 
product of this double energy — political and religious 
zeal. 

The Gnostic was as little anxious to confront the 
military despotism under which he lived and dreamed 
as the Christian enthusiast was. But when a creed or 
a religion is debarred from alliance with political advo- 
cates, it can commend itself only by appeals to universal 
sympathy, and by the constancy with which it endures 
martyrdom. Christianity adopted both methods ; Gnos- 
ticism adopted neither. It was a theology of particu- 
lar salvation — confined to the elect and the illuminated 
only. Its adepts, as TertuUian maintains, shrunk from 
suffering on behalf of their tenets. Now a faith which 



CHRIS rS POLITICAL MAXIM. 125 

incites neither love nor admiration will have no hold on 
the minds of men. A creed, on the other hand, may- 
be harsh and severe, may distribute its rewards and 
punishments by no higher principle than caprice or 
chance, and yet may win its adherents by thousands, 
because it appeals to some profound and energetic sym- 
pathy. The Scotch Covenanters did not fight and die 
for the "Westminster Confession, but for liberty of con- 
science. Besides, men may accept a faith which seems 
dark and forbidding, and yet find the profoundest con- 
solation in it, because they look on themselves as the 
peculiar objects upon which its narrow favors are 
bestowed ungrudgingly, because they are able to die 
first. 

As the Christianity of the apostolic age carefully- 
abstained from traversing the authority of the political 
system under which it grew, so it shows no trace of 
any inclination to ally itself with the forces of a friendly- 
government, should such a contingency arise. The, 
maxim of its Founder, " My kingdom is not of this 
world, else would my servants fight," has its com- 
plement, implied but unexpressed, that the same king- 
dom declines the alliance of the civil authority in aid 
of its own pretensions to allegiance, or in efifecting the 
extension of its sway. From time to time, a religious 
movement has enlisted political sympathies on its side, 
and may do so again. But the association must, be 
temporary, unless the religion is to be enslaved and 
corrupted. For its own safety, it must make only a 
short treaty with material and social interests. The 



126 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

reason lies in the facts, that its influence and action 
cannot be narrowed to the limits within which pohtical 
authority and social opinion are contained, that its 
agent is enthusiasm, and that this sentiment can have 
only an occasional connection with political utility. 

The mission of Christ is to the world, — to save it, to 
renew it, to sanctify it. He propounds a general, why 
not a universal forgiveness ? He sufiered, the just for 
the unjust, that He might, as the highest e:^ample, com- 
mence that service which all those who ponder on His 
work, and thereupon would be His disciples, must needs 
continue. Like the runners in the Athenian torch- 
race, each man who is worthy of this office, and has set 
himself to the work, is to carry on, unextinguished, and 
with undiminished fire, his love towards the race of 
which he is a member. This is the glory of the noblest 
sacrifice which has ever been made on man's behalf. 
Do they, who, following His example, are willing to 
%, lose their lives trusting that they may find them, — 
whose hearts' desire and prayer is for the salvation of 
their people, — who can even, in the plenitude of their 
self-abnegation, wish themselves anathema from all 
hope, if by such means the whole race be enlightened, 
— shall they think that the majesty of God is at 
variance with the fatherly care with which He ever 
watches His creatures, or that it is not in His counsels 
that mercy rejoiceth against judgment? To have the 
mind of Christ, is to continue the work which He 
began, to save souls, to take part in the gTcat battle 
against sin, misery, ignorance, moral death. Such a 



CHRIST'S MISSION AND MIND. 127 

life is the best antidote against that morbid dread of 
God which clouds the religious sense of many, and that 
indolent egotism which claims to be illuminated, and is 
lazily confident in its own indefectible perfection. 



CHAPTER IV. 

I .^ARLY in the first century after Christ, a Christian 
-■— ' living at Nablous, — a city better known by its 
ancient name of Samaria, — addressed an Apology to 
the Emperor Antoninus on behalf of his fellow-believers. 
This defence of the new reHgion was written by one 
who was well acquainted with the Old Testament and 
at least three of the Gospels, for he quotes abundantly 
from these books. The writer, who calls himself Justin, 
comments on the unfairness which treats the Chiistians 
with severity, while he defends them from those charges 
of impiety and licentiousness which were freely uttered 
against them. In giving a summary of their faith and 
practice, he informs the emperor of their method of 
common worship, and describes the ceremony of Bap- 
tism, and of the Lord's Supper or Eucharist. Justin 
gives the earliest account, after the Apostohc age, of 
the ritual observances peculiar to the new sect. 

" Those," he says, " who agree with and confess our 
tenets are washed and regenerated in the name of God, 
of Jesus Christ our Saviour, and of the Holy Spirit. 
This washing is called illumination. In this baptism," 
he observes, " we do not use the ineffable name of God, 
for if any one did so, he would be forthwith seized with 



CHRISTIANITY IN JUSTINS TIME. 129 

uncontrollable madness. When we gather for worship, 
we use common prayers in a loud voice, for ourselves, 
for the person who has been baptized, and for all others. 
Then we kiss each other. After this, bread, a cup of 
water, and another of wine are brought to the person 
who presides over the brethren. Thanks are offered to 
God. The president takes the viands, gives praise and 
glory to the Father of all, by the name of the Son, and 
the Spirit of the Holy One, offering general thanks 
because the worshippers were deemed worthy of such 
blessings from His hands. Then the deacons distribute 
the bread and wine to those who are present, and carry 
them to those who are absent. No person, however, is 
permitted to partake of them except those who are 
believers and are baptized. We offer alms, and are 
constantly together. We always meet on Sundays, 
when we first read the commentaries of the Apostles or 
the writings of the Prophets. When the reader ceases, 
the president of the meeting preaches. We then pray, 
and again receive the bread and wine." 

The first account seems to describe the daily office, 
and the second to refer only to the Sunday service. It 
would appear that the common prayers were some set 
form, and that they were recited by the whole congre- 
gation. The method of worship corresponds, generally, 
to that which is alluded to in St. Paul's First Epistle 
to the Corinthians, though disorders and confusion had 
crept in upon the devotions of the Corinthian Chris- 
tians. It may be observed, too, that at Nablous, — if 
Justin, is describing the customs of the congregation in 
6* I 



130 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

his own city, — there is no regular minister, in any 
modern sense of the word. The word which is trans- 
lated " president " does not designate even a per- 
manent officer. The solemnity of the Lord's Supper, 
and the preaching of the Gospel, are performed by a 
person who is not necessarily possessed of any thing 
but a temporary f auction . That such a president was 
selected by reason of his character and in consideration 
of his capacity for inculcating the doctrine and rule of 
the Christian life, may be expected ; but Justin gives 
no hint of an order or a clergy set apart for this office, 
still less of any sacerdotal mediation, or judgment, or 
spontaneity. The primitive Church is a congregation, 
whose creed is excessively simple, whose ritual is an 
act of mutual sympathy, an expression of common 
needs. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews tells 
us that there were believers who did not even collect 
together for common worship and mutual exhortation, 
though he advises the contrary practice. 

The prinaitive Christians — Justin being taken as an 
instance of their customs — set great store on partici- 
pation in the celebration of the Lord's Supper, or, as 
he calls it, in the Eucharist. The language which the 
Apologist uses about this rite is positive as to the behef 
in its being the means for associating the Christian 
with Christ, and of its being an essential to salvation 
or at least to religious health and safety. If the Apol- 
ogy of Justin be genuine, and its genuineness has been 
rarely disputed, and if Justin can be taken, as there is 
no reason to doubt he can, should the first hypothesis 



EARLY CHRISTIAN RITES. 131 

be satisfactorily accepted, as the type of the Syrian 
Christian at the beginning of the second century, the 
ceremonies of Christian initiation, baptism, and the 
Lord's Supper, are severally treated as illumination, 
regeneration, and a partaking of the body and blood 
of Christ. 

The two characteristic offices of associated worship, 
which the testimony of Justin shows to have been 
generally practised in the earliest Christian commu- 
nities, are obvious symbols of natural use. A cere- 
monial purification was not peculiar to Christianity. 
It is found in Judaism, in those Eastern creeds which 
influenced the religious sentiments over which Chris- 
tianity was induced, and in the lustrations of the Greek 
mysteries. Physical purity was an apt emblem of 
moral sanctification, and its^ sign was adopted by the 
Great Master, as a means of formal admission into the 
covenant of His Gospel. Baptism in the name of 
Christ becomes, by a natural feeling, at once a symbol 
and a power. 

One of the earliest, most lasting, and most widely- 
spread among the feelings of humanity, is that which 
exalts association into unity. Under the influence of 
this sentiment, physical objects which once belonged 
to some dearly-loved being, or physical acts which 
recall his presence to the memory, renew the pleasure 
or felicity which the presence Of his being once gave. 
They form the link by whicli the soul can bind itself 
to that which has gone out of its sight, and after which 
it is earnestly longing. Relics and memorials are the 



132 PAUL OF TABS US. 

means by which the sadness of separation is lightened, 
by which the reality of that which is so tenderly loved 
is certified and assured. Hatred, on the other hand, 
uses the same stimulants that love does. The tender- 
ness which cherishes such mementos is akin to that 
fierce malignity which collects the relics of an enemy, 
in order to make them the material for the incantations 
of magic or witchcraft. As the solicitude with which 
deep afiection gazes on that which it loves seems to 
guard or protect the object of its care, so men have 
believed that an envious or hostile glance may wound or 
weaken those against whom it is dii-ected. Hatred is 
not only the .counterpart of love, but it uses the same 
associations in order to glut itself. 

Out of these sympathies, assisted by such reminders, 
men develop the permanent conceptions of family, coun- 
try, church. It is because they are thus constrained to 
perpetuate what they have felt and known, that they are 
saved from that isolation, which may flatter men with a 
cynical sense of independence, but which would, if it 
were generally adopted, wreck society, and all the forms 
under which society is constituted and exists. To say 
that man cannot live alone is a platitude. But men may 
seek to gain all the advantages which social life afiTords 
them, and contribute nothing to the forces by which 
they profit. 

The moral progress of man is not due to the fact, 
that in the struggle of life, the strong have supplanted 
the weak, or elbowed them out of existence. On the 
contrary, it has been effected by the fact that the strong 



THE SENTIMENT OF ASSOCIATION. 133 

have sheltered and cherished the weak, that they who 
can strive and conquer have used their power and their 
success for the purpose of succoring the feeble and the 
oppressed, for lavishing the tenderest feeling and action 
on those who cling to them for support and protection, 
and who have nothing to offer in return for these bene- 
fits but untiring and unchanging love. It may be that 
man has been developed to his present condition out of 
a mere animal savagery. It is certain, that if this be 
the case, he owes all his j^rogress to actions which are 
the very reverse of that policy which gives the weak 
over as a prey to the strong. It is equally certain, that 
if he does decline hereafter into barbarism, he will owe 
his moral decadence to the spread of the temper which 
urges men to live for themselves alone. 

The admiration, the worship, with which men wit- 
ness the strength and wisdom which are used for the 
good of others, and not for joersonal aggi'andizement, — 
the homage which they offer to courage, joined to gen- 
tleness, — are acknowledgments of the great part which 
such qualities play in the moral government of society. 
Nor is this admiration less enthusiastic because they 
who feel it are conscious only of the benefit which 
goodness and wisdom confer on themselves, and do 
not forecast their effects on mankind at large. 

The memory of Christ was riveted in the hearts of 
His disciples and followers. He had largely availed 
Himself, in the teaching which He gave them, of the 
sentiment of Association, by the use of parable and 
analogy in His discourses and actions. He had 



134 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

instructed them in the doctrine that the unity of man- 
kind was to be found in Himself, and had prescribed a 
ritual by which that unity should be perpetually sug- 
gested. When He was gone from them, the whole 
meaning of His intercourse with them became appar- 
ent and permanent. Before, theii* hearts were dull, and 
they could not understand Him, their eyes were holden 
that they could not see Him. Now every thing was 
clear. 

But nothing seems to have been graven more indeli- 
bly on their memory than the scene of the last Supper. 
It is the one event in the life of Christ which St. Paul 
narrates. It is the central fact of the fourth gospel, the 
circumstance to which the discourses in that gospel 
tend, or round which they are arranged. It was 
recalled to the mind of all by the necessities of daily 
life, by the breaking of bread. The reminder was 
cumulative, the analogy natural. As human nature 
requires daily sustenance, so the spiritual natm-e which 
is contained in the life of man needs daily nurture. As 
the physical growth of man is due to his daily bread, 
so the growth to the measure of the stature of the ful- 
ness of Christ demands as imperatively the renewing 
of that spiritual food. The showing forth of the Lord's 
death is the source of the Christian's life. The five 
thousand are fed abundantly, and the fragments exceed 
the necessity. Nay, the practice of Christian man was 
prefigured in the Law. The heavenly food in the 
wilderness, the ever-flowing rock which accompanied 
the wanderers in the desert, are manifestations of the 



SCRIPTURES QUOTED BY JUSTIN. 135 

same spiritual force. Unseen but not undiscovered, 
He is in the midst. He is the Power of God and the 
Wisdom of God. 

The readings in the Church, whose ritual Justin 
describes, are taken from the commentaries of the 
Apostles and the Prophetical books. The term em- 
ployed to express these commentaries is that used by 
Xenophon to denote the collection of Socratic conver- 
sations which is known as the Memorabilia. It is clear 
that the Apologist was conversant with the three gos- 
pels, for he freely quotes from them, though he does 
not name the authors of these biographies. It may be 
that time has spared us only some of these compila- 
tions, and that the ruin which fell on Judea during the 
great war may have been followed by the loss of many 
apostolic compositions. The considerable space be- 
tween the age of the first Apostles and that of the 
earliest Fathers is very imperfectly illustrated, is very 
inadequately filled by the reminiscences or collections 
of Irenseus. St. Paul may have adverted to one of 
these lost books, when he is said to quote, as a well 
known saying of Christ, that " it is more blessed to 
give than to receive," — a passage the more remarkable 
as the Apostle hardly ever refers to these doings and 
sayings. 

The writings of the Prophets are those books of the 
Jewish Scriptures in which Justin was very well versed. 
Born a heathen, and bred a philosopher, Justin tells 
us that he was converted from metaphysical specula- 
tions to Chi-istianity, by the conversation which he 



136 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

held with an old man who accosted him as he was tak- 
ing a solitary walk on the sea-shore. These prophet- 
ical writings were carefully studied by the more learned 
Christians, as they formed the best polemical weapon 
against the Jews, their Messianic character harmoniz- 
ing with the history of Christ. 

St. Paul gives us some particulars about the ritual 
of the Corinthian Church. It had become necessary 
that the Apostle should put an end to certain disorders 
and confusions, and estabhsh in Corinth a nnifonnity 
with the practice of other churches. There was one 
very notable peculiarity in the churches of this city, 
which is not mentioned as characteristic of any other 
church, which is not referred to in the subsequent epis- 
tle to the same church, nor in the epistle of Clement. 
It is the power of speakbig in tongues, — a power, the 
manifestation of which St. Paul does not wish to for- 
bid, though he plainly desu-es to keep it within the 
narrowest possible hmits. It is probable that the dis- 
couragement with which the Apostle treats the faculty 
may have led to its disuse. It is clear that the 'fac- 
ulty was abused, that it tended to disorder, and that 
its only possible value was that it might attract the 
favorable notice of unbehevers, though this advantage 
was counterbalanced by the risk, that an excessive or 
simultaneous exhibition of the power might induce an 
uninstructed audience to believe the actors mad. 

The persons who possessed the power of speaking 
" tongues," uttered their sentences occasionally in a 
foreign language ; but sometimes, it would seem, gave 



" SPEAKING WITH TONGUES:' 137 

vent to unintelligible sounds. Some of these outpour- 
ings the Apostle compares to the irregular emission of 
such musical notes as have neither rhythm nor melody, 
or to the blare of a trumpet, which does not indicate 
any of the known calls to which soldiers give ear. It 
is probable, the Apostle says, that there is no sound, 
however numerous sounds may be, which is undevoid 
of meaning ; but if one does not know what the sound 
may mean, the utterance wull be a jargon. A man, 
indeed, may pray in language which he himself cannot 
comprehend, and the act of devotion will edify his 
spirit ; but his mind will have no benefit from the 
sounds expressed, and perfect acts of prayer and praise 
must be intelligible as well as devotional. Five words 
which may be comprehended are worth more than ten 
thousand of those obscure sounds. If they must needs 
be uttered, a very few people should make the ejacula- 
tion, and one should interpret it, if it can be inter- 
preted. If no interpretation be forthcoming, it is 
better for the person who possesses the fiiculty to be 
silent, as the sound neither profits himself nor others. 

There is a danger that an honest enthusiasm may lead 
him who feels it into strange freaks — that it may be 
simulated by others for sinister ends — that it may 
be misinterpreted, even at its best. It is impossible to 
avoid the inference that the reasoning employed by the 
Apostle — containing, as it does, no small amount of 
suggestive irony — should have checked, and finally 
eradicated, the habit of spealdng in " tongues." 

Far superior, however, to this ecstatic, and some- 



138 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

what superfluous gift, is that of prophesying, as St. 
Paul calls it. It is the most serviceable of spiritual 
^fts — edifying and instructing individuals and the 
Church. It may be communicated to all believers. 
Other gifts may be used with thankfulness when be- 
stowed ; this is that gift which all should desire to 
obtain ; it is that, says the Apostle, which I wish that 
all of you possessed. 

The names and history of those eminent men who 
had guided the public policy of Israel during the mon- 
archy were familiar facts to both Jew and Christian. 
Some of them had written books. At least, their re- 
corded sayings were collected and set in order by their 
disciples. These works, under the general name of 
" The Prophets," were esteemed highly by all who held 
to the Jewish covenant as a complete revelation, and 
were equally reverenced by those who believed that 
the Law was imperfect and typical — the shadow of 
ttiat which was to come. 

We are so accustomed to consider the prophet of the 
Jewish covenant as the expositor of the Divine pur- 
pose towards the chosen people and the rest of man- 
kind, that we are apt to lose sight of his attitude 
towards his own generation — to forget that he rebuked 
and counselled king and nation — that he was a states- 
man and a jurist, who interpreted the 2JC>litics of his 
age according to the, law of God and the permanent 
interests of His people. The spirit of this law was 
expounded by the prophet, with breadth and boldness, 
with force and dignity, with exquisite poetry and 






THE JEWISH PROPHETS. 139 

pathos. The prophet was the preacher of holiness and 
righteousness, of religion and morals ; for the Jewish 
kings constantly exhibited the traits of other oriental 
sovereigns, and the priests do not appear to have exer- 
cised any great social influence by the mere virtue 
of their office. It is by the prophets and their writ- 
ings that Israel not only maintained the purity of his 
religion, but was saved from sinking either into one of 
those races which have been long since extinct, or from 
being degraded into a pennanent, but a savage horde. 
The word of the Lord came to him, was spoken, and 
endures for ever. To the student of history it is im- 
possible to exaggerate the influence which these men 
have exercised on the destiny of mankind. Though 
they were guided by such lofty impulses, and such pro- 
foundly religious sentiment, their life and action is 
intensely real. They were neither philosophers nor 
devotees, but politicians of the purest type, whose en- 
ergies were devoted towards preserving the institutions 
of a petty Syrian kingdom, but whose principles of 
action were those of perfect pohtical morality, and 
were therefore of universal significance. They believed 
in a public conscience, a public duty, a public relig- 
ion, and they never failed to insist on the obligations 
which give society all its force and vigor. God had 
committed to them a great charge, and they dared not 
be timid or unfaithful. 

History supplies us with no parallel to the influence 
which these men wielded. They were the leaders of 
opinion in a kingdom which was neither very large 



140 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

nor populous, at an epoch when their country was 
overshadowed by powerful empires, and was the 
highway of great contending armies. They had to 
preserve its independence by their policy. But they 
had a still harder task to perform, that of maintain- 
ing the purity of its religion. Even more dangerous 
than the political forces which threatened Judah, were 
the corrupting influences which tended to debase the 
Law by their contact ; for no nature-worship was more 
gross than that of Phoenicia, no fetish more cruel than 
that of Moab and Ammon, and of the other old Cana- 
anite races. They had to interpret the Law according 
to its spiritual meaning, to advocate a higher life than 
the corn, and wine, and oil, and honey of the older 
promise; and to set this loftier example before the 
State and the Man. ISTor were the external difficulties 
of their position all that they had to contend Tvith. 
Some prophets were found who, like Hananiah, aposta- 
tized from their calling ; men whose time-serving false- 
hood extorted from Jeremiah that bitter complaint 
which contains in it a summary of ages in the world's 
history, — The prophets prophesy T\ickedness, and the 
priests applaud them, and my people love to have it so, 
and what will ye do when the end of these things 
comes ? 

These prophets were not ignorant enthusiasts, who 
owed their authority to mere self-assertion. They were 
trained to such learning as the times possessed, in 
certain recognized seminaries. These institutions were, 
it would seem, founded by Samuel, — for it is during 



THE APOSTLE AND THE PROPHET. 141 

the age of this Judge that the schools of the prophets 
are specially distinguished, — and were continued 
down to the great Captivity. At the Restoration, tlie 
prophet's place was supplied by the teaching which the 
Rabban gave his disciples. The Jews were ready to 
recognize the spirit of the older prophet in the teach- 
ing of the Baptist, and the discourses of Christ are the 
utterances of one who, trained as the prophets were 
trained, surpassed them all; completing the sum of 
Divine wisdom, announcing in all their fulness the 
counsels of God,, and promising the continuance of 
the Spirit to his disciples. 

As the part of the prophet was one of great honor 
and authority, so it was one of peculiar danger. Mon- 
arch and peoj^le were occasionally recalled to their duty 
by the warnings of these advisers, but as often turned 
savagely on the unwelcome or intrusive counsellor. 
The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews recounts the 
sufferings which these patriots underwent. Christ, 
with full foresight of His own destiny, charges the 
existing generation of the Jews with an aggregate of 
that blood-thirsty hate which prompted the death of 
Abel, and consummated the slaughter of Zecharias, — 
whose murder, says the Talmud, was committed during 
the time that Jerusalem was besieged by the Chaldeans, 
and was mercilessly avenged by Nebuzaradan. 

It is the power, then, of interpreting religious duty 
in the various occasions of life, of bringing the Spirit 
of God which dwells within the believer to bear on 
the course of human action, which St. Paul prays that 



142 PAUL OF TABS US. 

his Corinthian disciples may possess. He ranges the 
prophet after the apostle in the rank of useftilness. He 
would have them all obtain, and all use this gift for 
personal guidance and mutual counsel. Himself in the 
fullest sense a prophet, and enjoying abundantly this 
clear inward hght, he longed that all his converts 
should be equally advanced in spiritual knowledge and 
wisdom, — should equally contribute towards the edifi- 
cation of the Church. He warns them against secta.- 
rian differences, reminds them that their allegiance 
cannot be divided or shared, and advises them to aid 
each other in the gTeat work of wisdom and hoHness. 

The time was not come in which this function — 
to be performed by the members of an obscure and 
struggling sect — should be extended so as to fill the 
sphere in which the ancient prophets exercised their 
great ministry. And when the time did come, and an 
opportunity was offered in which Christianity, having 
interpenetrated the whole life of society, might con- 
stitute a Divine republic, a true civitas Dei, a state in 
which profound rehgious energy should go hand-in- 
hand with clear political sagacity, the Christian world 
was busied in logomachies, was ruled by monks and 
ascetics, by "logicians and mystics. Then the Church 
eagerly completed a bargain, under the terms of which 
the successftd portion was empowered to proscribe its 
rivals, provided only that the whole force of ecclesias- 
tical government should ally itself with the temporary 
expedients of a demoralized and decaying government, 
with the degraded imperialism of the Constantines. 



WORSHIP OF TEE CORINTHIANS. 143 

The worship in the Corinthian churches is strangely 
like that of the earliest Quakers. One man had a 
psalm to recite, another a rule of conduct to announce, 
a third some linguistic utterance, a fourth some revela- 
tion, a fifth the interpretation of Some obscure passage 
of Scripture, or of some mystic declaration. To add to 
the confusion, the women were as eager in their con- 
tributions to this bewildering clamor as the men were. 
Hence the Apostle enjoins silence in the churches on 
the women, as is seemly, and to avoid scandal. The 
injunction, it aj^pears, was peculiarly needed in. the 
Corinthian churches, was special, j^erhaps temporary. 
Elsewhere, it is clear that women exercised great influ- 
ence on the discipline of the Church, and that they 
busied themselves with the spread of the Gospel. 
Priscilla is one of these ; so is Junia, whom Paul speaks 
of as an apostle ; also Tryphena, Tryphosa, and Persis, 
and probably Julia, and the sister of Nereus, — to quote 
those names only which are found in the Epistle to the 
Romans. The notion that the Apostle discouraged the 
services of women on behalf of the Gospel is an exag- 
gerated inference from the language of the Epistle to 
the Corinthians, and is contradicted by facts. 

If the assemblies of the Corinthian Christians, when 
St. Paul wrote with the view of checking tliese dis- 
orders, resembled those ecstatic gatherings of the older 
Quakers, so the religious exercises which he commends 
resemble the decorous solemnities which have character- 
ized the meetings of these sectaries, after the enthu- 
siasm of teachers like Fox was controlled by the good 



144 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

sense of reformers like Penn. There is absolutely no 
hint given in the epistle of any organized ministry, 
still less of any hierarchy whatsoever. Every convert, 
as far as the text of the letter informs us, was on a 
footing of perfect equality with his neighbor or brother 
in Christ, w^as competent to raise his voice or expound 
in the Church. We do not even find a temporary 
president of the meeting, such as was set up in the 
church which Justin describes. The gifts of the Spirit 
were various, and every convert had some gift which he 
might employ for the general good of the Church. 
But this silence as to church government and an offi- 
cial ministry is not peculiar to the Corinthian epistles. 
Only one of the epistles addressed to churches contains 
any allusion to resident ecclesiastical officers ; and this 
address to the bishops and deacons of Philippi, while it 
has made some persons suspect that the letter is of 
doubtful authenticity, has induced those who contend 
for its genuineness to assign it to the latest period of 
the Apostle's life. 

But though the epistles to the churches affi3rd little 
or no information on the subject of the Christian min- 
istry, and present a mass of negative evidence as to the 
appointment of a regular order, the Apostle gives an 
account of what the office of the Lord's Supper was, 
and what it ought to be. The converts came together, 
each bringing his food and drink with him, though 
not, it would seem, with the intention of giving it to a 
common fund. Some were hungry, some indulged in 
excess ; the rich enjoyed themselves, the poor were put 



CHURCH DISCIPLINE AT CORINTH. 145 

to shame by their inability to vie with this profusion 
and ostentation. It would appear that the Corinthians 
imagined, provided they took their meal in the same 
building, that they were performing the rite which was 
commanded to believers as a solemn commemoration 
of Christ's death. St. Paul therefore narrates the cir- 
cumstances under which the rite was instituted, enjoins 
its observance on Christians, shows the danger of a 
profane misinterpretation of it, and the consequences 
which have already ensued from careless malpractice, 
inculcates the rule that it is a feast in which all wor- 
shippers are equal, and promises to give further details 
on his arrival. 

The First Epistle to the Corinthians gives some in- 
sight into the discipline of the Church. A professed 
believer had married his step-mother, and this, appar- 
ently, during his father's lifetime. Such a marriage 
was discreditable among the heathen. Under certain 
circumstances, it was, despite the prohibition in Levit- 
icus, permitted among the Jews, in consequence of 
certain decisions in the Talmud, which professed to 
interpret cases like those of Abraham and Sarah, 
Amnon and Tamar, Adonijah and Abishag, where mar- 
riages between persons who were within close relations 
of consanguinity or affinity were either contracted or 
contemplated. The gloss of these doctors was, that in 
case the wife was of heathen parentage on the mother's 
side, the relationship need not be a bar. It has been 
suggested that the offender was a Jew, who had taken 
advantage of this opinion of the Jewish doctors, and 
7 J 



146 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

had thereupon debauched and married his step-mother. 
It seems to me more likely that the wife had taken 
advantage of the easy law of divorce which prevailed 
among the Romans (for Corinth was a Roman colony), 
and had thus contracted a marriage which the Roman 
custom branded as incestuous, but for which, in so 
licentious a place as Corinth was, there was probably no 
punishment. 

Apart from the consideration of its immorality, the 
act was dangerous to the reputation of the Church. 
The early Christians had every interest to maintain a 
character for purity, since scandal would be sure to be 
busy with them, however careful they were, if it could 
only catch at any fact. St. Paul therefore commands 
instant aud severe measures. They are to suspend the 
culprit immediately, in the name of Christ, and by His 
power, from fellowship with the Church. They are to 
give him over to Satan, — the Apostle using this phrase 
familiar to those who knew the histories of Job and 
Ahab, to imply that the offender should suffer some 
severe bodily aihnent, as a punishment and corrective 
for his offence. The object of the chastisement was not 
the destruction of the man, but the repentance of a 
sinner. We learn that the Church was roused to 
action by the Apostle's command, that it cleared itself 
of all complicity in the scandal, that it put public cen- 
sure on the offender, that the offence was repented of, 
and that it was forgiven. 

The Founder of Christianity was reproached with 
His lenity to offenders, was blamed for the readiness 



CHBISTIANITY AND PENITENTS. 147 

with which He welcomed repentant sinners. A scheme 
of religion which inculcated the doctrine of God's love, 
gentleness, long-suffering, which insisted on the impos- 
sibility of man's fulfilling all the requirements of a 
precise and searching law, and which taught that man 
was reconciled to God through the great sacrifice of 
Christ, could not be severe to those who sorrow over 
their sin, — could not but welcome back those who, 
roused by an accusing conscience, seek forgiveness and 
peace. If the Gospel declares all men to need salva- 
tion, if it warns men of the consequences which ensue 
to those who are impenitent, and even implies that a 
sharp and purifying fire is needed for them who have 
lived sensuously, though not sinfully, it is boundless in 
its charity to those who seek fbrgiveness. To grant 
this forgiveness is the very essence of the Christian 
religion ; to refuse it is to be implacable, and therefore 
unforgiven ; to inflict irrevocable punishment is to usurp 
the functions of God ; to desire that such punishment 
should be inflicted is to be of a spirit of which no man 
should knowingly be, to league one's self with the accu- 
ser and destroyer. The scheme of Christianity admits 
the great value of human life, but it insists on the trans- 
cendent value of the human soul. 

The generosity with which Christianity treated re- 
pented sin in primitive times has been permanently 
characteristic of its later discipline. It has even gone 
beyond the ancient rule, and has all but ignored disci- 
pline itself But, however lax it has been in dealing 
with the practice of its followers, it has from time to 



148 PAUL OF TABS US, 

time been implacably severe on their opinions. It has 
dealt with morals and belief respectively as the Index 
dealt with Lucian, — permitted the publication of all 
that is gross, suppressed every thing which it consid- 
ered sceptical. It has, in the hands of those who pre- 
tended to be its fathers and doctors, committed the 
greatest cruelties which have ever polluted the world. 
The dark fears of tyrants have never devised such tor- 
ments for their victims as the disciples of Chiist have 
perpetrated, — and that without the tp-ant's plea, with- 
out a word of justification from the teaching of Him 
whom they profess to adore, — in the face, even of His 
absolute prohibition. They who professed to be the 
stewai'ds of God's mercy and grace, developed an in- 
sane fanaticism out of the fears which they stimulated, 
and led generations of mankind to beheve that they 
were vindicating God's honor by permitting, encour- 
aging, assisting a dark and merciless hatred against 
those who were suspected of heresy. 

The Church of the earhest ages is not perfectly fi-ee 
fi'om this attemj^t to usurp the fimctions of the Divine 
Judge. VTe shall see that the labors of Paul were 
seriously hindered by the narrowness of those who 
professed the faith of Christ ; that the last days of his 
life were embittered by the apostasy of those who 
owed their knowledge of the Gospel to his unwearied 
energy ; that for a time he was followed by angry cal- 
umnies. But the fervid zeal of the early Church was 
ready to welcome all who accepted the name, and 
strove to live the Life of the Christian. It had not yet 



MEATS OFFERED TO IDOLS. 149 

attempted those definitions which bewildered and rent 
it. It was busied with the belief that the work of all 
religion is to effect the association of man's soul with 
the undoubted Presence of God. It saw that the space 
between God and man, which might be infinitely small, 
and might be infinitely great, could be filled up by the 
person of Christ — a Humanity of perfect love, of un- 
wearying providence, of such attractiveness that it 
occupies every affection, sanctifies every emotion, unites 
all men by a common bond, but is, withal, the power, 
the glory, the wisdom of God — the exemplar of all 
creation, the strength by which every thing is made, — 
one with God and one with man, — the one true Priest 
and Mediator. To accept His mediation is to satisfy 
man's most earnest longings — to guarantee the law of 
liberty, or, in modern language, the highest and purest 
civilization. 

The Church at Corinth put a question of conscience 
to the Apostle. The worship of Greece and Rome 
involved the offering of sacrifices. The same nations 
practised augury by inspecting the viscera of slaugh- 
tered animals, these animals being the substitutes for a 
more ancient rite, which was common in Mexico at the 
time of Cortez, where human sacrifices were offered 
for similar ends, the body of the victim being after- 
wards disposed of in the same way. Having served 
the purpose of intercession or vaticination, the car- 
casses of these animals were sent to the butcher's 
shop. It is probable that by far the largest portion, if 
not the whole, of the meat exposed for sale had been 



150 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

previously employed for these sacerdotal objects, and 
that a conscientious refusal to purchase any of that 
which had been offered to idols would be equivalent to 
abjuring the use of flesh altogether. What is to be 
done in such an emergency ? Can we purchase such 
food? 

To a person whose early training led him to look 
with horror on -any ceremonial defilement, however 
little it was coupled with a disposition to offend against 
the Law, the case was one which must have been in- 
stantly answered in the negative. The Jews were 
excessively strict in seeing every condition of ceremo- 
nial cleanliness satisfied in the preparation of all ani- 
mal food, and would certainly have rejected this kind 
of flesh. But the Apostle thought differently, now at 
any rate. The idol is absolutely nothing. There is 
but one God, or, in case people believe there are powers 
in heaven or on earth, to us at least there is but One, 
who is the author of all, and to whom we revert, and 
one Christ, who is the Type of all, and by whom we 
subsist. They who really know and understand these 
facts have no need to find any difl^culty in the case ; or, 
as he subsequently tells the Romans, there is nothing 
unclean in itself ; or, as logicians say, there is no objec- 
tive impurity in any kind of meat. The uncleanness 
of food is a subjective impression. 

In a later part of the epistle, the Apostle, after one 
of his characteristic parentheses, reverts to the case of 
casuistry which has been submitted to him. He is 
reminded of it by having alluded to the community of 



PAUVS COUNSEL ABOUT MEATS. 151 

act, thought, and spirit, which are involved in the cel- 
ebration of the Lord's Supper. He compares it to that 
fellowship in the sacrifice, which those who partake of 
the flesh offered at the sacrifice must needs reciprocate. 
And then comes before his mind the analogy which is 
presented by participation in flesh previously offered 
to idols. To participate in the sacrifice is devil-wor- 
ship, and cannot be thought of To imagine that the 
religious feast can be conjoined with an idolatrous sym- 
posium, a heathen revel, is to profane it, and cannot be 
endured. 

The rule of life is, however, clear. What is lawful 
to an individual, and what is expedient or advantageous 
to a society are not always identical, and the Christian 
is bound to consider his neighbor's good. If you, who 
know that the act of idolatrous sacrifice is a mere 
farce, see meat exposed for sale, buy it without question 
or comment. If you are invited to the house of a man 
who is not a Christian, and you care to go, do so, and 
eat of any dish set before you, without question or 
comment. But if you are expressly informed that the 
meat has been sacrificed, avoid it for your own sake 
and that of the person who informs you. Better deny 
yourself than offend those for whom Christ died. Give 
no cause of scandal to Jew, Greek, or the Church of 
God. Take my example, who was a Jew to the Jews, 
and a Greek to the Greeks, in order to win them over. 
The example is that of Christ himself, who could not 
countenance intolerance of race or station — rebuking 
sin in all, encouraging what was hopeful in all. 



152 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

Whether this liberty which the Apostle advocated 
was abused, or they who censured his system of gener- 
ous interpretation were offended at such counsel, is not 
clear. But the author of the Apocalypse complains 
that the converts in the Asiatic churches eat things 
offered to idols, and that in Thyatira, the church lis- 
tened to the woman Jezebel who claims to be a proph- 
etess, and dares to counsel this practice. It is difficult 
to avoid the impression that part of the vision in Pat- 
mos was directed against the liberty which Paul de- 
manded, though he gave counsel as to the limits of that 
liberty. It does not necessarily follow, that the writer 
of the vision was aware of the reasons which induced 
Paul to decide as he did, or of the cautions with which 
he sun'ounded his decision. But it was very hard to 
wean men from the traditions of the older faith, — to 
induce them to believe that a ritual which was merely 
symbolical was not of universal and permanent obliga- 
tion. It is hardest of all to advise successfully, that 
the spirit of a law should be discovered, and its letter 
interpreted by such a spirit. It may be added that 
Justin Martyr comments unfavorably on those who give 
permission to eat the flesh of heathen sacrifices. 

If the Apostle granted liberty in this direction, he 
refused it to those who would thrust the Jewish polity 
into the Christian Church. He hears that the Gala- 
tians are observing days, months, seasons, years, the 
Sabbath of the Jews, the new moons, the stated feasts, 
the times of the Jewish Law. He dreads that his 
labor may have been in vain, when men who have 



THE SABBATH AND ALMS-GIVING. 153 

learned God's ^vill, and, better still, were accepted by 
Him, return to such poor and contemptible observ- 
ances. For Sabbatarian strictness the Apostle has no 
respect whatever. He tells the Romans that he is in- 
different to the recognition of any such day. But when 
it is made obligatory by reactionary teachers, he even 
denounces the observance of it totally. The curious 
fancy which has intruded into some Christian societies 
a rigorous observance of Sunday, and which has trans- 
ferred to it the extreme strictness of the Jewish Sab- 
bath, was not only not countenanced by St. Paul, but 
spoken of as a matter of utter indifference, except 
when it is intended to suggest allegiance to the Jewish 
code. Then it was to be repudiated as delusive and 
dangerous. Even when that code was imperative, the 
Master had taught that the Sabbath had a purely hu- 
man purpose ; it could not be endured that prejudice 
should exalt it into a stringent obligation of religion. 

The first day of the week had already been recog- 
nized as a convenient occasion for common prayer and 
mutual exhortation. According to Josephus, the days 
of the Jewish week were known over the civilized 
world; and the reason why Sunday was selected for 
the purposes of devotion is given by Justin. It was 
the day of the resurrection, and was thence called the 
Lord's day. St. Paul directs that on this day each 
man should lay up that which he can spare for the 
necessities of the poorer brethren, and observes that he 
gave the same direction to the Galatian churches. The 
wholesome and purifying custom of systematic charity 
7* 



154 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

characterized the Jewish synagogue, and was incul- 
cated on the Christian communities. When men are 
taught to feel pity for poverty, distress, and sickness, 
they are insensibly schooled into that duty of forgiving 
injuries which Christianity has made an article of 
faith. 

The Apostle insists that he is justified in drawing on 
this fund, or some similar resource, for the exceptional 
supply of his own personal necessities. Occasionally 
he accepted the spontaneous assistance of his converts, 
and particularizes some churches which had been eager 
to supply his wants. But his dehcacy of feehng, his 
honest pride in the perfect disinterestedness of his mis- 
sionary work, led him to disj^ense generally with such 
acknowledgments of his services. He abhorred the 
thought of making the TTord of God a trade — of 
huckstering over the price at which his office should be 
compensated. A rare self-abandonment ! It is as diffi- 
cult to imitate the self-denial of an Apostle, as it is to 
achieve his vigor and success. 

Paul and Barnabas put no charge on the churches, 
but the other Apostles did. Xay, they travelled in 
company with their wives, the Apostle specially desig- 
nating the brethren of the Lord and Peter as having 
used this privilege. An early legend represents the 
wife of Peter as being led to death, and as encouraged 
by him to persevere. It is curious and instructive that 
this disclaimer of the Apostle, and contrast of his habit 
with the thoroughly lawful practice of the other Apos- 
tles, should inform us of the feet that the enforced eel- 



EARLY CHURCH GOVERNMENT. 155 

ibacy of Christian ministers has no warranty in the 
conduct of the Apostles, and that the contrary custom 
is sustained by their example. But the time was not 
come yet in which worldly policy would recommend 
a Manicha?an tenet as a part of ecclesiastical discipline. 
The earlier ej^istles of St. Paul supply us with no 
information as to the form of church government 
adopted by primitive Christianity. It probably varied ; 
its organization was not settled, nor was it important 
that it should be settled. Had there been any perma^ 
nent, or even regular officers in the Corinthian church, 
it is impossible but that the Apostle should have made 
some reference to them. The Corinthians do not seem 
even to have established the diaconate ; for the contri- 
bution which each is expected to make towards a gen- 
eral collection is not to be paid to some local treasurer, 
but is to be stored up in the house of the giver until 
the Apostle's arrival. Had the Apostle considered it 
important that the Corinthians should be supplied with 
a settled ministry, he would have ordained such officers 
at his previous visit, or in his first letter to them, which 
has perished, or would have directed them to provide 
themselves with proper officials fi'om their own body. 
The disorders which he wishes to check — and the cor- 
rection of which is the principal motive for writing the 
epistle — are not remedied by the establishrnent of a 
hierarchy, by providing a central authority to which 
disputes could be referred ; and the same fact may be 
inferred negatively as to the other churches whom he 
addresses, with the exception of that at Phihppi. St. 



156 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

Paul must have been totally indifferent as to forms of 
cliurch government, and would have rebuked any intol- 
erance which might prescribe a uniform rule in all the 
churches. 

With the exception of the deacon's office, the origin 
of which is narrated in the Acts of the Apostles, all 
that we know of ecclesiastical officers is obtained from 
the writings attributed to Paul. In his letters to Timo- 
thy, the Apostle instructs his favorite disciple in the 
qualifications which must be sought for in a bishop or 
overseer. These do not materially differ from those of 
a deacon. In the letter to Titus, the bishop and the 
elder or presbyter are identified. In the First Epistle 
of Peter, the word bishop is applied to Christ, and the 
Apostle describes himself as an elder or presbyter. The 
"angel" or messenger of the seven churches in the 
Revelation has been supposed, somewhat superfluously, 
to be the bishop, for it is difficult to see how a person- 
age whose name implies departure from a particular 
locality should be identified with the resident gov- 
ernor of the Church. 

There is not the shghtest trace of any hierarchy in 
the New Testament, unless, indeed, it be discovered in 
the Apostolic College at Jerusalem, whose paramount 
authority St. Paul distinctly repudiated. The Church 
was a republic of federal congregations, bound together 
by no administrative tie, though closely united by a 
common faith and a common charity. Nor is any 
Apostle tied to a spot. Titus is sent to ordain elders in 
Crete ; is spoken of, therefore, as its first bishop, but in 




ORIGIN OF EPISCOPACY. 167 

the Second Epistle to Timothy he has gone to Dalma- 
tia. Timothy is left at Ephesus in the first epistle, but 
is certainly not there at the date of the second, for the 
Apostle informs him that he has sent Tychicus thither. 
Where Timothy was does not appear, but he was to 
call at Troas on his journey to Paul, then in imminent 
peril at Rome, where, as it seems from the Epistle 
to the Hebrews, the disciple narrowly escaped his 
teacher's fate. It is an anachronism to speak of an 
Apostolic bishop, perhaps an anomaly. That this offi- 
cer's appointment became general at an early period of 
Church history was due to causes which had no exist- 
ence, or only an inchoate existence in the Apostolic 
age. 

The silence of the New Testament on ritual and 
Church government contrasts markedly with the energy 
with which these accidents of later ecclesiastical history 
have been assailed and defended. It can be shown that 
the three ecclesiastical offices were all but universally 
recognized by the middle of the third century, — that 
the function of ordinary bishops was conferred by 
bishops only, that of presbyters by bishops and presby- 
ters, while a less marked solemnity accompanied the 
appointment of deacons. According to Selden, how- 
ever, who quotes St. Jerome, the bishops of Alexandria 
were elected and consecrated by the presbyters till the 
Patriarchate of Alexander, in the fourth century. But 
the ancient missionary did not delay his labors till he 
had received a bishop's license. The best claim to 
antiquity and independence, which can be put forward 



158 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

on behalf of the ancient Irish and Gaelic Churches, lies 
in the fact that St. Patrick appears to have received no 
ordination whatever, and that St. Columba was singu- 
larly independent of episcopal control. 

It is not remarkable that authority, which is natu- 
rally apt to identify a fact with the form in which it is 
contained, or by which it is disguised, should, after the 
custom of episcopal government became universal, look 
on the advocacy of an alternative to such a form as dis- 
affection, treason, or heresy. But, unless it can be 
shown that the form in question is absolutely essential 
to the maintenance of order, and the security of free- 
dom, its expediency is always open to debate. The 
policy of episcopal government has been challenged, 
partly on account of the excessive zeal which its sup- 
porters have manifested in claiming for it a Divine 
authority, partly because it has been sustained by force 
against reluctant disputants. Now, in ecclesiastical as 
in civil government, a form of administration which 
resents criticism on its intrinsic authority is self- 
condemned; that which strives to suppress all opinion 
as to its validity, or value, is sure to provoke active 
hostility. Had the principle of episcopacy never 
affected to rest on Divine right, but had been content 
to found its claims on the obvious convenience of a 
graduated municipal system, it would have probably 
been accepted as the best way in which religious 
thought can be encouraged and tested, religious action 
assisted and guided. But its advocates attempted to 
make its acceptance a condition of Christian brother- 



NO EARLY CLERICAL ORDER. 159 

hood; to force its establishment on unwilling minds, 
and even to inflict the worst atrocities of civil war on 
those sectaries who were dissatisfied with its regimen. 
It is said that the establishment of a clerical order, 
and, in particular, of a permanent chief officer who 
.should govern the Church in a town or district, was 
founded on a necessity for creating some organization 
against heretics and schismatics. The theory is plausi- 
ble, but of doubtful proof It is quite possible that, 
had St. Paul created some such officers in Ancyra, 
Ephesus, Corinth, his authority would have been more 
respected, and the churches of Galatia, Asia Minor, and 
Greece would have been spared some follies and scan- 
dals. But it was not the mission of the Apostle to 
organize a society, but to teach a religion. He did not 
fall into the common error of reformers and mission- 
aries — that of setting up a precise rule of church 
government, for he knew well enough that such artifi- 
cial systems are in the end constantly fatal to the move- 
ment which they are intended to further. The Apostle 
foresaw that his work would be, to a great degree, 
undone by intrusive tenets. Before his life was over, 
he witnessed more than once the partial or complete 
apostasy of churches which he had founded, and of 
disciples whom he had taught. But with the excep- 
tion of a few, and these very general, directions to 
Timothy and Titus, he provides no ecclesiastical magis- 
tracy which should meet these imminent mischiefs. It 
cannot but be the case that he put no reliance in those 
adventitious aids to orthodoxy. It is certain, if he had 



160 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

no confidence in them, that he was guided by his cus- 
tomary prescience. The schisms, heresies, religious 
parties, of the second and third century were innu- 
merable. It was only when State and Church were 
allied that outward unifonnity was achieved under 
the mechanism of an episcopal system. 

Apart from the natural tendency to organization 
which a common belief and a common practice engen- 
der, the social habits of the early Church rendered 
some form of church polity necessary, and even sponta- 
neous. The primitive Church of Jerusalem was poor. 
It adopted a strict communism, an ascetic, contempla- 
tive life. In time, when the resources which its first 
disciples threw into the common fimd were exhausted, 
it lived on the alms of the faithftil, adopting finally 
the custom of the Jewish hierarchy, who levied first- 
fruits on their dispersed brethren. Hence the early 
necessity Avhich arose for establishing a treasury, with 
officers who should be appointed to distribute the funds, 
and who should obviate the charge of favoritism. These, 
we are expressly told, were the motives for establishing 
the diaconate. In Nablous the duty of distributing the 
common fund was intrusted to the president. 

St. Paul was far too wise to attempt the introduction 
of this communistic system among the Gentile con- 
verts. He knew well enough that such a scheme 
would be fatal to energy, would be fatal to the Church. 
For the sake of peace, and as part of his compromise 
with the Judaizing party, he recognized their claim, 
that the Gentiles should remember the poor, adding, 



DEACONS AND DEACONESSES. 161 

with some irony, that he was ready enough to do so. 
Nor did he neglect to carry out this promise, for he 
was engaged in this work of charity, or at least gener- 
osity, when the rabble set on him in the temple at 
Jerusalem. He had no objection to assist the poverty 
of those pious ascetics, of putting their claims before his 
converts, though he shrunk from taking any compensa- 
tion for his own services. 

In course of time, it was inevitable that distress 
should arise within these Gentile churches, and it was 
notoriously the duty of Christian men to relieve the 
wants of their brethren, and indeed of all men. The 
profound sense of this generous obligation was one of 
the best gifts which Judaism bestowed on Christianity. 
The establishment, then, of officers who should collect 
the alms of the richer, and assist the wants of the 
poorer brethren was necessary. The office was not 
limited to the male sex, even when the poorer congre- 
gation asked the aid of some rich and distant church. 
Phcebe, the deaconess of Cenchrea, gets an introduction 
from St. Paul to the churches at Rome, just as a colo- 
nial missionary might be introduced to the benevolence 
of a wealthy English congregation. The text implies 
that her mission was an apphcation for some pecuniary 
assistance. It is to be regretted that Phny, in his 
celebrated letter to Trajan, admits that he felt it expe- 
dient to put two of these pious women to the torture, 
in order to extract the truth from them. But the fact 
shows the important position filled by the Bithynian 
deaconess. 



162 PAUL OF TABSUS. 

The bishop and his presbytery bear an obvious re- 
semblance to the great or the little Synedrion of the 
Jews. The former of these was constituted in imitar- 
tion of the seventy elders who were selected by Moses 
and associated with him ; the latter, containing twenty- 
three members, was supposed to be indicated by certain 
passages in the book of Xumbers. The chief of 
this assembly of elders naturally became the bishop. 
Among the heretics, says Teitullian, the bishop's office 
was temporary, as w^as also that of the presbyters. 
The function of such officers was to keep order in the 
Church, to admit the catechumens, and subsequently to 
see to the instruction of the young, to preach, and to 
govern. The office of a judge in matters of doubtful 
doctrine, in heresy, and in any breach of the Church's 
law, was a later development of the episcopal office, but 
was in course of time naturally annexed to it, as the 
organization of the ecclesiastical system was more ex- 
actly elaborated. It may be added that, as persecution 
became more general, the post of bishop was that of 
danger, and, among men who were reproached with a 
passion for martyrdom, that of honor. The reader need 
hardly be reminded that men who have been persecuted 
are not always tolerant. In the histoiy of Christianity, 
it has frequently been found that they who have 
suffered most, and most patiently for their creed have, 
when enabled to give effect to their own judgment, 
been distinguished for a savage and relentless ortho- 
doxy. 

Again, familiarity with the local magistracy and 



GROWTH OF EPISCOPACY. 163 

council of the Roman colonies may have suggested 
analogous institutions in the Church. The earliest 
churches, when Christianity was so far tolerated as to 
permit the erection of permanent buildings (and we 
read of such buildings as early as the time of Alexander 
Severus), were built in the form of the Roman basilica, 
or court of justice. On the raised apex of the building 
was the bishop's throne, while, arranged in a semi- 
circle, on either side, were the seats of the presbyters — 
the altar being placed just before the bishop. So the 
emperor dispensed justice from his tribunal, while his 
assessors and advisers sat on either side of him, and 
delivered their judgments on the case before the court. 
So the Pope sits still during the highest ceremonies. 
The name by which the area of the bishop's jurisdiction 
is desisrnated is a word denotingr a secular administra- 
tion. Diocese is used by Lysias, Demosthenes, and 
Aristotle, to imply the control of expenditure. It was 
transferred to the Latin language, and in Cicero means 
the civil divisions, or shires, into which a province was 
parcelled out. 

We shall search in vain, then, for the details of eccle- 
siastical government in the authority of the Apostolic 
age. They were developed from the necessities of the 
position, and from the convenience of adopting a pro- 
cess of administration which was familiar in secular 
experience. Rapidly, episcopacy became one of the con- 
servative forces of the Church, and so formed a barrier 
against novelties in speculation and practice. In time, 



164 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

the conflict of opinion, which raged through the fourth 
and fifth centuries, was waged by episcopal champions 
■ — the success of the combatants varying, the vehe- 
mence and violence of the battle increasing. After a 
while, the patriarchal see became the unit in the Church, 
and the bishop a suffi-agan to the metropolitan, as the 
presbyters had been made the subjects of the bishops. 
Last of all came the struggle for the primacy, and the 
submission of the whole Christian rejDublic to a theo- 
logical CsBsar. 

It is not difficult for us to anticipate what would 
have been the judgment of the author of the Epistle 
to the Galatians on those who would limit the gifts of 
God to the subjects of one ecclesiastical administra- 
tion. We can easily imagine what he would have said 
of those who assert that a missionary effort is neither 
successful nor valid, unless it be accomi^anied with some 
definite hierarchical organization, and who would there- 
fore intrude on the labors of others, — not that they 
may plant or water, but that they may clip the tree 
into some set shape. With a strong effort he had dis- 
engaged himself from the trammels of a precise and for- 
mal education, and, though willing enough to concede 
to the prejudices of others, he insisted that the shib- 
boleths of ecclesiastical parties were vain in them- 
selves, and might be tyrannical, reactionary, and even 
fatal to religious truth altogether. The heathen have 
been converted and enlightened. In place of some 
gross fetish, dark rite, or debasing superstition, they 



EARLY CHRISTIAN MEETINGS. 165 

have been told of a Father who forgives, of a Brother 
who leads them to the Divine presence, dwells with 
them, and familiarizes them with that for which here- 
tofore they ignorantly and fruitlessly longed. They 
feel a new nature — are new men — have been born 
again. Then, in the freshness of their faith, some come 
down to trouble them, and say, — Except you adopt 
the ceremonial, the ritual, the forms, the government 
of the church to which we belong, ye cannot be saved. 
Can any one doubt what advice Paul would have given 
in this crisis, or that his zeal for Christian liberty would 
have forced him to repeat that contemptuous wish 
which he uttered when he heard of those who troubled 
the Galatians ? 

We can, with no great stretch of fancy, realize the 
gathering together at the house of Justus, hard by the 
synagogue. Prayers are said by the assembled con- 
verts. Psalms are sung, perhaps those with which the 
Jews commenced their devotions. Then follows the 
reading of the Scriptures, and in particular those 
majestic compositions which, full of dignity, wisdom, 
warning, hope, have come down to us under the names 
of the great Jewish prophets. Then some of those 
present narrate their experience of the new gospel, 
recount the' visions, the ecstatic reveries, the heavenly 
sounds with which they have been favored, — such, 
for example, as are told in the Shepherd of Hermas. 
Others give, in turn, to the whole assembly, or to 
groups collected there, short exhortations on the Chris- 



166 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

tian life and tlie Christian hope. Afterwards follows 
the feast in memory of that which Christ held on the 
night that He was betrayed ; then thanks are given 
to God, and the assembly disperses with the kiss of 
peace. 



CHAPTER V. 

'THHERE is probably no man who doubts the histor- 
-^ ical existence of The Person some of whose acts 
and words are narrated in the gospels. But to many 
minds He is represented as an idealized being, the real 
lineaments of whose life and teaching it is impossible 
to discover in the cloud of myths by which the figure 
is enveloped. This opinion has partly risen out of a 
disbelief in the supernatural — a disbelief which has 
been growing for the last century, and which has been 
strongly assisted by the progress of physical science, — 
partly out of the impression that the miracles of Chris- 
tianity are at once essential to its truth, and manifes- 
tations of an absolutely new power, instead of being, 
as they profess to be, the exercise of exalted energy, 
— partly from antagonism to that dogmatism which, 
professing to be based on certain positions, the accept- 
ance of which is necessary to salvation, has inflicted, 
and still inflicts, prodigious injuries on mankind. The 
theory that the narrative of the gospels is generally 
mythical is further supported by the fact that it con- 
tains discrepancies and contradictions, which, on the 
commonest rules of historical criticism, ought to throw 
grave doubts on the genuineness of the story. This 



168 PAUL OF TABSUS. 

latter argument seems to me to have very little weight. 
The notion that genuine history is characterized by an 
exact and minute attention to details, is wholly mod- 
ern. It may be doubted whether — since no narrative 
can give all particulars — this method of historical 
composition does not, with all its affectation of reality, 
present a more unreal presentation of the past, than 
the artless tale of an interested, but uncritical observer, 
— whether, in short, syncretic history is not exceed- 
ingly apt to be untrustworthy or deceptive. Thucyd- 
ides is the type of an exact and patient historian. 
Had, however, another author, of an equally critical 
turn of mind, devoted his attention to the same events, 
we should, most probably, have two very different 
stories of the Peloponnesian war. The more accurately 
two persons narrate theii- impressions of the same great 
events, the wider is sure to be the discrepancy between 
them. No two men see facts in exactly the same light, 
or direct their attention to exactly the same circum- 
stances. 

Be this as it may. If the narrative of the Evan- 
gelists is a myth, it is the most magnificent myth ever 
invented. Assume, if you will, that the Jesus of the 
gospels is a Jewish doctor, who united in His person, 
and at that time, the wisdom of a Rabbi and the en- 
thusiastic genius of a Hebrew Prophet, and that two 
parties — the Jewish hierarchy and that bureaucracy 
which got the party name of the Herodians — com- 
bined against Him with a trumped-up charge of trea- 
son against the Roman government, and threatened 



TEE CHRIST OF THE GOSPELS. 169 

Pilate — a creature of Sejanus, who might be alarmed* 
at the prospect of being involved in his patron's ruin 
— into getting this inconvenient teacher put out of 
the way by a legal murder. It is plain that this is the 
ostensible ground of procedure before Pilate, and it 
is equally plain that offence, taken at the unsparing 
reproofs which Jesus uttered against the chiefs of Jew- 
ish society, was the motive which weighed with the 
traditional parties of Christ's day. Such an event is 
no way remarkable. An oligarchy conspiring against 
a reformer, and using every effort to crush him, is a 
familiar historical occurrence. 

But this, though it is, in brief, the prominent fact in 
the life and death of Christ, and though it is seen 
clearly in the story of the gospels, is not the conception 
which occupies the minds of the Evangelists, and ab- 
sorbs those who have studied their narratives for eigh- 
teen centuries. In the epic of the Gospel, if we are to 
consider these compositions as so many poems, there 
is one hero. There are other characters drawn in very 
slight outline, but with great clearness, with rare 
beauty and nature. The fervid unsteadiness of Peter, 
the habitual dejection of Thomas, the tenderness of 
John, the indecision of Nathanael, the zeal of Zac- 
chaeus, the womanly worship of the Magdalene, the 
contrast between the sisters of Bethany, are portrayed 
in a word or two. 

But in the centre of all this is the figure of Christ. 
It is not a colossal form which dwarfs the other actors 
in the drama, or a prodigious force by the side of which 
8 



170 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

'ordinary human energy is lost, or an overmastering will 
whose resistless action compels submission and obedi- 
ence, but it is an efiiilgence which extinguishes every 
other light. It is said that the sun at its highest makes 
all other flame cast a shadow. Now the Evangelists 
were so profoundly conscious of the luminousness of 
that Presence, that, to the reader of the gospels, Christ 
appears always in the radiant garment and with the 
visage of His transfiguration. He is as the sun in the 
splendor of which other luminaries are extinguished. 
The Humanity of Christ is never lost sight of. He is 
always Jesus of Nazareth, but He is surrounded by an 
indescribable and mysterious clearness, which we seem 
to gaze on as the disciples did. In the simplest and 
most familiar acts of His life among them. He is with 
them, but not of them. Their relations to Him are not 
those of a Rabbi to his pupils, but of men necessarily 
following and wondering at a Person who is wholly 
superior to themselves, whom they saw constantly, 
whom they reverenced profoundly, but whom, as they 
confess, they understood imperfectly. He taught as 
one having authority, and He spoke and acted with all 
the authority of His teaching. If the Christ of the 
gospels is a hallucination of the Evangelists, it is the 
most amazing and the most attractive conception which 
the imagination has ever fi-amed. 

Attempts have been made more than once to invest 
an historical personage with ideal characteristics. Two 
such attempts were notoriously undertaken in rivalry 
of the Christ, as described in the gospels. These are 



CHBIST AND SOCRATES. 171 

the life of ApoUonms of Tyana by Philostratus, and 
that of Pythagoras by Jamblichus. The most unfriendly 
critic of Christianity would not contrast these narratives 
favorably with the gospels. Besides, both personages 
are unreal. The existence of Apollonius is doubted, 
and the first historian of Greek philosophy, Aristotle, 
though he often speaks of the Pythagoreans, never 
mentions the name of the sage who was in after times 
reputed to be the founder of the sect. 

But the draft of an idealized portrait has been once 
made, and by the greatest master of dramatic language 
which the ancient world produced. Every effort of 
his imagination was lavished by Plato on completing 
the picture of his Socrates, and the works of this in- 
comparable writer have come down to us entire. We 
know that the picture is ideal, for we have a homelier 
portrait of the wisest Greek from the pen of another 
disciple whose sketch is much more true to nature. 
But Plato did for philosophy what the great sculptors 
of antiquity did for the human form. As they invested 
their statues of gods and heroes with their highest con- 
ceptions of human beauty, so Plato conferred on his 
imaginary Socrates the possession of the loftiest ideal 
philosophy. 

The parallel between Christ and Socrates has often 
been drawn. Both were reformers of society, both 
suffered on a false charge of impiety, and in deference 
to a false patriotism. But here the parallel ends. So- 
crates is the purest example of heathen ethics, and the 
Platonic system of ethics is sustained by a scheme of 



172 PAUL OF TABSUS. 

emanations which are intended to have the force of a 
religious authority, and to be confirmed by the laws of 
thought. But Christ is the founder of a religion. Nay, 
He is the religion itself. Other men have been shadows 
of the great Original. Here is man in the image of 
God, — man as the ancient seers conceived him to have 
been originally framed, — man as modern optimists 
conceive him capable of becoming. Here is the type 
of humanity. Henceforth religion is the imitation of 
Christ, because the nature of God has shone forth in the 
person of man. If this conception is a myth, the grand- 
est poetical character is dwarfed into nothingness beside 
the narratives of the reformed tax-gatherer, the attend- 
ant on Paul and Barnabas, the physician of Troas, and 
the fisherman of Galilee, who, whatever may be their 
discrepancies in detail, agree in this magnificent ideal 
of wisdom, holiness, loveliness. If this conception be 
a myth, humanity is better in its myths than it is in its 
verities. 

The easiest road to saintship is by asceticism. Men 
are instinctively so enamourel of self-denial — are so 
pleased by a contrast to the wretched clamor of self- 
interest, which is always stunning them with its preten- 
tious noise, that they will honor a fool if he can show 
himself disinterested. They will even acquiesce in a 
system which is certain to induce moral and social evil, 
even if it furthers the worst ambition which a sinister 
organization can gratify, provided only that an ascetic 
tinge is imparted to those w^ho found the system. 
Buddhism is the worship of asceticism. Brahmanism 



CHRIST ANB ASCETICISM. 173 

owes its continued existence to the austerities of Fakirs 
and devotees. The founders of the Roman orders have 
been almost invariably rigorous ascetics. Some of them 
have been crazy, or almost idiotic. There is nothing 
which is more cardinal in the discipline of the Roman 
Church than the ceUbacy of the clergy. A married 
minister of the Gospel is inconceivable to the most 
liberal layman of the Romish Church. Nothing puz- 
zled the contemporaries of Talleyrand — secularized as 
he was by the highest authority, so much as his mar- 
riage. And yet the truest critics of the social state in 
Roman Catholic countries have deplored the celibacy 
of their clergy — have seen that the surrender of all 
domestic ties gives a vigor to ecclesiastical organization 
and usurpation which is eminently dangerous to society, 
and is wholly inimical to liberty. And in another 
manner, though the Graeco-Russian Church enjoins 
marriage on the parochial clergy, all authorities — 
latest among them. Dr. Eckhardt — concur in stating 
that all ecclesiastical influence is with the monks, and 
that the secular clergy are despised and degraded. 

Christ totally repudiated asceticism. He is contin- 
ually represented at the home of rich men. When He 
entered on His mission His first appearance is at a 
wedding. He avows that He came eating and drink- 
ing, and we are told that He was calumniated because 
He did not decline the hospitalities which were offered 
Him. He recognizes the stern courage of John the 
Baptist, — asserts that he was a prophet, nay, even 
more than a projohet, — but speaks slightingly of his 



174 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

pretensions and position as compared with those who 
are within the kingdom of heaven. He taught, to be 
sure, that men who follow Him must deny themselves, 
— He put a sharp test to the rich young man who 
would be His disciple, — He avowed that wealth was a 
danger, and inculcated reliance on the providence of 
God for the supply of daily necessities. The sacrifice 
of one's own interest may be a condition of the highest 
morality and religion which the Gospel inculcates, but 
Christ never makes asceticism the end of life, as the 
purifier of the soul. 

It is evident that the disciples who walked with 
Christ were struck most of all with His insight into 
men's hearts. He knows man thoroughly. He divines 
the thoughts of individuals, anticipates their words, 
reads their very soul. This is the power which is al- 
ways present in Him. Such a conception is perfectly 
true to nature. To know mankind is the greatest mani- 
festation of what we call genius. To interpret public 
opinion, and thereupon to guide it, is the highest effort 
of statesmanship. To know all this, and to be able 
also to exercise the same j)ower in particulars, — to 
discern by an instant intuition all that passes through 
the mind of another, — is to be possessed of the Wis- 
dom and the Power of God. Now this was what the 
Evangelists perpetually recognized in their intercourse 
with Christ. 

Joined to this marvellous insight into man, Christ 
had another notable characteristic, — that of profound 
sympathy for suffering, infinite tenderness for the weak, 



COMPASSIONATE NESS OF CHRIST. 175 

boundless charity for the penitent. The reproach was 
cast at Him that He was the friend of pubUcans and 
sinners. The rich man who made Him a feast is amazed 
at His gracious bearing to the penitent woman who 
shed tears on His feet. His parable of the Prodigal 
Son — a story which has taught repentance and hope 
to thousands — is the narrative of His own bearing to 
the sinful soul which yearns for pardon. So, again, 
with His commiseration for the w^idow at Nain, His 
compassion for the bereaved parents in Galilee, His 
sympathy with the sisters of Lazarus, His unceasing 
benevolence to the sick and ailing. There is nothing 
more touching in the life of Christ than His welcome 
of children to His arms, and His sorrow at the impend- 
ing fate of Jerusalem. Now, if wisdom is divine, love 
joined to wisdom is even more divine. It is the rarest 
of conjunctions, but the most winning of forces. It 
turns a terror into a Providence. This exact scrutiny 
into motives, this distinctness with which thought or 
purpose is known, would frighten and deter man from 
companionship with so acute and clear-sighted an 
observer. But when this knowledge is interpreted by 
love, it becomes infinitely attractive. And the Christ 
of the gospels is a personage in whom these qualities 
combine. He has even a word of compassion for the 
miserable Judas, He utters a prayer for the forgiveness 
of them who crucified Him. 

The Jews, nineteen centuries ago, were keenly ex- 
pecting the coming of the Messiah. The teaching of 
the Rabbis had discovered this manifestation in such 



176 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

phrases as " the Word of God," " the power of God," 
"the wisdom of God." Some speculated on the mys- 
tic numbers in the Book of Daniel. Some, mindful 
of the glorious era of David and Solomon, materialized 
the promise made to the Fathers. This was the popu- 
lar view. The multitudes were ready to make Jesus 
a king. They joined gladly in His processional entry 
into Jerusalem — an act which evidently alarmed the 
chief men in the city. The last expectation of the 
Twelve, according to the narrative in the Acts of 
the Apostles, is that He should restore the kingdom to 
Israel. But the wisest men anticipated only a moral 
revolution — a fulfilment of the prophecy of Zechariah, 
" The Lord shall be King of the whole earth. In that 
day there shall be one Lord, and His name one." The 
doctrine of Christ, " The kingdom of God is within 
you," had no strange sound to Jewish ears. The office 
of the Word, according to the Talmudists, is to en- 
lighten the man. The young man who fulfilled the 
Law was not far from the kingdom of God. The Jew 
could read and understand the words of Hosea, — 
" What does the Law demand of thee, except it be to 
do justice, and to love mercy, and to be ready to walk 
with the Lord thy God." 

During the life of Christ the two characteristics 
which I have referred to were constantly before the 
view of His disciples. Of course they did not believe 
that such a person could be delivered into the hands of 
His enemies. When Peter repudiated the suggestion, 
he, no doubt, spoke the thoughts of all those who were 



41 



RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 177 

with him. It is probable that Judas did not intend to 
do more than take money for assisting in an attempt 
which he was persuaded Avould fail. Is it possible to 
believe that John the evangelist, who was the especial 
object of Christ's favor, and who was known to the 
high priest, could have witnessed what went on in the 
pontiff's palace and the praetorium, and have been 
silent, if he had not been convinced that this judicial 
procedure would have ended in an acquittal, or in some 
manifestation of power, by which Christ would have 
passed out from the midst of His enemies ? Had not 
Christ said that He was greater than Solomon and 
Jonah — the king and the prophet who severally af- 
fected the imagination of the Jew most powerfully? 
For the one was the most splendid monarch of Eastern 
story ; the other was the prophet who, having by his 
counsel restored the kingdom of Israel to the dimen- 
sions it reached in the days of the great king, left 
unwillingly his office of chief minister at the court of 
the second Jeroboam, in order to denounce the sin and 
predict the fall of Nineveh the great — of the rival, 
and finally, the conqueror of Israel. 

The narrative of the gospels testifies to the conster- 
nation of the disciples at the judicial murder of Jesus. 
But their sorrow soon gave way to joy. They were 
informed that He was risen again from the dead, and 
this by eye-witnesses of His revived Presence. The 
body was no longer in the tomb. 

They who do not believe that death has ever loosed 
its hold on those whom it has once occupied are con- 

8* L 



178 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

strained to adopt the hypothesis, that the narrative of 
Christ's resurrection is a fraud, or a delusion, or both. 
If the disciples did dispose of the body of Christ, and 
persisted in proclaiming that He had risen, till they 
were overpowered by an hallucination which had its 
beginnings in deceit and falsehood, and if, while occu- 
pied by this imagination, they adopted a severe and 
ascetic life, an exact and precise morahty, it is not easy 
to find the parallel to such a delusion. No rational 
person can doubt, that the belief in the resm-rection of 
Christ was entertained as finnly by all those who pro- 
fessed His religion, as the belief in their own existence 
was. It is proclaimed before God and man, not, be it 
observed, for any material end, — such as a scheme of 
conquest, or the foundation of a spkitual despotism, to 
be exercised by those who could induce their hearers 
to acquiesce in a supernatural authority, — but by men 
who are charged with advocating so spiritual a system, 
that they ignored home, friends, country, life itsell^ for 
the sake of Him whom they said was risen. 

It seems impossible to doubt the good faith of those 
simple and devout men, who could have had no pos- 
sible motive for committing a fraud, and perpetuating 
a falsehood. Writing twenty-five years after the event, 
the apostle Paul states that Christ was seen by Peter, 
by the Twelve, by five hundred at once — most of 
whom, he added, were still alive at the time of his 
writing ; by James, and again, by all the apostles. Be- 
lief in the resun-ection of Christ is not made to depend 
on the testimony of one or two women, who have vis- 



TESTIMONY TO THE RESURRECTION. 179 

ited the sepulchre at the early dawn of a spring morn- 
ing and been deceived by some appearance and sound, 
or upon the assertion of some ecstatic visionary, whose 
imagination has represented the Person whom he had 
followed so long, the voice which he had so often lis- 
tened to. The evidence is cumulative ; and, as far as 
one hears, no single person who had averred that he 
had seen the risen Christ ever shook oiF the impression 
or conviction, or discovered that he had been in error. 
There is no parallel to so general, so persistent a delu- 
sion. 

According to the narrative in the Acts — given 
three times over, and purporting, on two of these 
occasions, to come from Paul's own lips — the conver- 
sion of the Apostle was due to a vision of the risen 
Christ. Without relating the circumstances, St. Paul 
tells the Corinthians that he had an interview with 
Jesus, and was thereupon an independent witness of 
His resurrection. Elsewhere, he rests his equality with 
the old apostolate on the ground that " he had seen 
the Lord." The author of the Clementines disputes the 
fact, in order to dispose of his claims to such a dig- 
nity. It is clear, then, that when Paul wrote his epis- 
tles there were very many persons who were ready to 
give their testimony to the resurrection of Christ, — to 
their having seen and conversed with Him. 

The affirmation of the death of Christ is the basis 
of the doctrine which asserts the redemption of man. 
The means by which man can be restored, or be 
created anew, or can commence the process of peifec- 



180 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

tion, is the suffering of Christ. That the progress of 
humanity is achieved by the self-sacrifice of those who 
devote themselves to its good, is a tenet in every re- 
ligion, and is confirmed by overwhelming experience. 
The sacrifice of Christ is the apotheosis of this princi- 
ple. Whether one considers the merit of the sufferer, 
or the excellence of the doctrine which he taught, the 
example of Christ is the chief illustration of the seem- 
ing paradox, that society gains by its losses, that 
it conquers by its sacrifices, that a righteous cause 
triumphs because it spares neither life nor labor in the 
prosecution of its claims, in the vindication of itself. 
Christ was the great atonement, but man is always 
engaged in the work of atonement for his fellow-man, 
as long as vice, sin, ignorance, have to be combated, 
wrong redressed, right done. Too often, indeed, the 
sacrifice and suffering are wasted because the imme- 
diate end is false or unworthy. Whatever else may be 
its merits, Christianity, in the hands of Paul, puts 
prominently forward the statement of the condition 
under which man may be regenerated, and declares that 
this sacrifice is vain, even in the person of its highest 
Exemplar, unless the same course be followed by those 
who accept the Gospel. Other aj)ostles had affii-raed 
the doctrine that the sacrifice of Christ is the salvation 
of man. Paul recognized the ethical significance of 
the statement, extended and developed it, and made it 
a permanent rule of conduct. The atonement of Christ 
is not in the hands of this Apostle a magical purifica- 
tion, but an example, the imitation of which is the 



CHRISTIANITY AND BENEVOLENCE. 181 

dut)^, the glory, the hope of them who would be like 
Him ; and if stress is sometimes laid on the immediate 
effect of Christ's death in those who are enlightened, 
and less emphasis is put on the continuity of the work 
which man does for man, it must be remembered that 
the apostolic generation confidently looked forward to 
the termination of the woi-ld within the lives of those 
who had witnessed the crucifixion. 

To do unsought and unrewarded benefit to mankind 
for the sake of God is the essence of the Christian life. 
It is that which gives perpetual vitality to Christianity, 
which enables it in spite of its having been often en- 
slaved to a coarse, harsh, false, political system, — in 
spite of its being perverted by dogmatic logomachies, 
and presented as a set of opinions, — to assist and 
retain the foremost place among civilizing agencies. 
The essence of Christianity is not in the priest, but in 
the sacrifice. It is to Christianity that we owe school, 
hospital, reformatory, and other allied agencies by 
which it is hoped that sin and vice will be discouraged 
and diminished. It is very possible that many of 
those who are virtually under its influence, decline, as 
far as words go, to acknowledge its authority. But 
men are constantly, for good as well as evil, controlled 
by traditions, habits, associations which they do not 
recognize, or which they even repudiate. Other relig- 
ions have inculcated beneficence, almsgiving, charity ; 
but Christianity is peculiar, in having taught that man 
can save man, and that he ought to save man. The 
civilization of man is not an induction, but an expe- 



182 PAUL OF TABSU8. 

rience, a harmony, an adaptation of those forces which 
may enlighten him, and leave him free. 

The sacrifice of Christ, and the significance of that 
sacrifice, are deduced from the admitted facts of His 
trial and execution. Both trial and execution were 
due to personal animosity on the part of the leading 
Jews, who stirred up the populace to demanding the 
death of Jesus. People talk of the fickleness of a 
mob, and ignore the dehberate malignity of an oli- 
garchy. There is reason to believe that the mob was 
not one of native, but one of foreign Jews, who, com- 
ing up to the temple in crowds, that they might cele- 
brate the Passover, were easily wrought to madness by 
hearing that Jesus had said He would destroy the tem- 
ple. Another mob of foreign Jews, twenty years or 
more after this time, was roused to the same mad- 
ness when they were informed that Paul had brought 
Greeks within the Jewish precinct. In these days, 
the Russian of the Greek Church, and the Frenchman 
of the Latin, are more easily driven to frenzy by tales 
about the profanation of their churches in Palestine, 
than the resident Christians of Jerusalem are. When 
they visit the sacred places, they are far more fanatical 
than those are who habitually dwell on the spot. Nor 
is the more sober judgment of those reformed church- 
men who do not stimulate the religious sense by sym- 
bolism or local feeling free from liability to similar 
impressions. Facts, says the Roman poet, have far 
less influence on the ear than they have on the eye. 
But distance lends intensity to sentiment. 



RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 183 

The resurrection of the body was a fixed article in 
the creed of the orthodox Jews. It was affirmed by 
Christ generally. He predicted it of Himself As has 
been stated before, it was believed to have occurred in 
the person of Christ, and there were a host of witnes- 
ses who were ready to affirm that they had seen Him 
in life and in the body whom the chiefs of the Jew- 
ish nation had persuaded Pilate to crucify. It may be 
said that the body of Christ was not identical in its 
physical qualities with that of His life and passion. 
He appears suddenly, and disappears as suddenly. The 
corporeity of the risen Jesus was unlike that of ordi- 
nary men, but it could, according to the narrative of 
the fourth gospel, be touched and handled. Accord- 
ing to Luke, the risen Christ actually ate with His dis- 
ciples, and soon afterwards disappeared, being carried 
away to heaven. But no other gospel ascribes to Him 
those peculiarities of ordinary life, and the authenticity 
of the passage in St. Luke's gospel is not free from 
doubt. 

Paul was by education a believer in the resurrection 
of the body, and had he remained constant to the faith 
of his youth, he would have insisted as energetically 
on this tenet as a necessary part of the creed of a 
spiritual religion, as he did after his acceptance of 
Christianity. Then he had seen a Person who had 
certainly been dead. The tenet had been verified by a 
prerogative instance. Accepted as a fact, the resurrec- 
tion of Christ became the basis of that doctrine accord- 
ing to which Christ unites and permeates all those who 



184 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

are His redeemed. This is His grace, His peace, His 
presence or indwelling. So strongly is the resurrection 
of Christ identified with the spiritual life, that the 
Apostle cannot conceive the death of Christ to be 
effectual for the regeneration or salvation of mankind, 
except on the hypothesis of His subsequent resurrec- 
tion. " If Christ," says he, " has not risen, that which 
we preach is valueless, and your trust is. delusive. We 
too are found out to have given false evidence of God, 
for we have borne our testimony of Him that He has 
raised Christ, whom he has not raised, if there be no 
resurrection of the dead. — If Christ be not raised, 
your confidence is vain, ye are still in your sins ; nay, 
they who have slept in Christ, have perished. As it is, 
however, Christ is," he adds (using a metaphor familiar 
fi'om the custom which prevailed among the dispersed 
Jews, of forwarding offerings to the temple in Jerusa- 
lem), "the first-fruits of the dead." 

Paul gives no reason for this connection of the resur- 
rection of Christ with the hopes which he held out in 
his gospel, beyond this statement, that the resurrection 
is the guarantee of man's immortality, and thereupon 
of that compensation for the sufferings of life, in which 
the religious sense assures men. He held, it would 
seem, that unless there be some fresh garment for the 
spirit of man, unless it be clothed on by some eternal 
vestment, it has no individuality, no existence. The 
body is the instrument of natural life, and the spiritual 
life of the hereafter needs some similar instrument by 
which to exhibit and continue its energies. In short, 



DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY. 185 

if the death of the body be not a prelude to its resur- 
rection under some new and perpetual organization, 
death annihilates the spirit simultaneously with its 
separation from that physical being which manifestly 
perishes. To die is not to live, unless the life finds 
some other dwelling-place. "We know," he says, in 
his Second Epistle to the Corinthians, "that if our 
earthly house, which is a tent, be dissolved, we have a 
habitation from God, a house not made with hands, 
eternal in the heavens. In this we groan, longing to 
put on our heavenly home, to be found clothed, not 
naked. We who are in this tent groan under our bur- 
den, since we do not wish to be stripped, but to be 
clothed fully, that the mortal part of our nature may be 
absorbed by life." 

The immortality of the Greek philosophers was 
vague and shadowy. That force, genius, virtue, could 
be irretrievably lost with the death of the man in 
whom they were existent, was an intolerable sugges- 
tion. That the outrageous injustice with which the 
life of antiquity was too frequently acquainted, with 
which all social life is too familiar, should not be recti- 
fied by some Power, and at some future time, was so 
shocking a sentiment, that it could not be entertained 
without imperilling even that measure of justice which 
existing society has been able to secure, and without 
which society would come to an end. But how, and in 
what form, the soul's immortality and felicity were to be 
secured, was left indefinite. Plato expounds his con- 
ception of the soul of man after death in the form of a 



186 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

vision, vouchsafed to Er the Armenian — a myth which, 

probably, had a Syrian origin. But, while the psycho- 
logical existence of the human soul was affirmed, the 
physiological conditions of its existence are ignored. 
The good are rewarded, the bad are punished. But 
how do the former apprehend their fehcity? how do 
the latter become sensible of their misery? To know 
and to feel, to enjoy and to endure, to be sad and to be 
happy, require the existence of some organization, 
through and by which the man receives his impres- 
sions. The road of knowledge is by experience and 
sensation. How can a disembodied spirit preserve its 
consciousness, which is its being ? The instinct which 
refuses to acknowledge annihilation is intelhgible, but 
what is the process by which identity is secured ? 

With this difficulty Paul attempted to grapple. 
Nothing appears to indicate more clearly how the 
Apostle's mind was impregnated with the formularies 
of the Peripatetic school, than the exposition which he 
gives of the means by which the personality of the 
man may be secured in the life to come. Here, how- 
ever, it may be necessary to say a few words on the 
psychology of that school of ancient thought, from 
which, as the writer believes, the phraseology of the 
Apostle's statement is derived. 

In the Aristotelian philosophy, all the phenomena of 
life and consciousness were comprised in one word, for 
which (^vp]) there is no English equivalent. Perhaps 
the nearest is "the vital principle." The word is 
applied to the spontaneous development of any organ- 



TEE ARISTOTELIAN PSYCHOLOGY. 187 

ism whatever with which Aristotle was experimentally 
familiar. Had he been acquainted with the laws of 
crystallization, there is every reason to think that he 
would have extended the application of the word so as 
to include this development, for he does not confine his 
term to the phenomena of volition only. 

The Aristotehan philosophy takes cognizance of the 
facts of life and nature. But it takes no note of the 
transc-endental and supernatural. It is entirely sub- 
jective, — entertaining no other evidence than that of 
sensation and consciousness, if, indeed, it makes any 
marked distinction between these two terms. It is 
possible, the philosopher argues, that there may be a 
life of the man which transcends experience. It is cer- 
tainly unpopular to dispute the opinion that the man is 
immortal, though the body perishes. But of such an 
ejcistence there is no evidence. Nay, it is impossible to 
conceive how it may be, however much we believe that 
it is, because we are familiar only with the machinery 
by which impressions are received and by which 
thought is evolved from those impressions. The instru- 
ment of thought is in the body, and the body pei'ishes. 

The general principle of life, or of spontaneous as 
opposed to derivative motion, exhibits various stages of 
development, from mere growth to appetite and will. 
The highest manifestation of life, that of man, includes 
the phenomena of the more imperfect forms of exist- 
ence. Man, besides his own proper organism, has that 
of the brute and the plant ; he grows and feels as well 
as thinks. The Aristotelian psychology, in brief, is 



188 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

incomplete Darwinism, differing from it mainly in the 
fact, that the progression of existence is conceived as 
co-ordinate, instead of being due to natural selection, 
— this phrase being a euphemism for the fact that the 
strong prey on the weak, or at least narrow those 
opportunities of hfe which the weak would have in the 
absence of the strong. 

Such an organization Paul recognizes as a " natural 
body." But he assumes that this natural body contains 
the germ of a higher organization, which is destined to 
receive that part of man's complex nature, " his spirit," 
and which survives dissolution. The difference be- 
tween the man of physical creation, and the man of 
the new or spiritual creation, lies in the fact that the 
former is life, the latter spirit. The former is of the 
earth, is the vessel of the potter. The latter is 
the Lord from heaven. The realities of physical exist- 
ence are distinct from those of the heavenly nature, 
though Christianity is the exaltation' of, the former to 
the latter. To them who are regenerate the higher 
life is potentially present, whether they have died or 
are ahve. This only is sure, that when He comes, the 
transformation will be instantaneous and complete. 
The dead will rise in their new nature, the living will 
be changed. The risen Christ is the exemplar and pro- 
totype of that glorious body which man will receive in 
exchange for the weakness of his present habitation, 
and in which he will preserve his individuality. The 
hope, however, of this resurrection seems to be limited 
— for the language used by Paul is sometimes perplexed 



PAUrS THEORY OF RESURRECTION. 189 

and ambiguous — to those who are regenerate, in whom 
is sown that germ of a new life which endures beyond 
death and the grave, and in the consciousness of which 
the Christian can exult over his last and his greatest 
enemies. 

St. Paul does not accept that coarser theory of a 
resurrection which confers on the spirit of man the 
same organism that he had and used during life. It 
must be something wholly different. It seems likely 
that this idea of the spiritual body — though it had not 
been unfamiliar to him in the school of Gamaliel — was 
framed on the vision which he had seen on the road to 
Damascus, and which was impressed so indelibly on his 
memory. Christ is in the heavens, the place of light, 
from whence comes life. Hence, relieved of the ordi- 
nary conditions under which the human body is limited 
by the grossness of its nature to one spot. He can show 
Himself in his glory to the furious enemy who is after- 
wards to become the faithful Apostle — can warn, re- 
prove, console, instruct him. And though we have no 
knowledge of what that nature is, we do know this, 
that we shall be like Him. It is plain that the Apostle 
had identified the doctrine of man's immortality with 
the resurrection of Jesus, and that he therefore holds a 
middle position to that immortality of the pure intelli- 
gence which the Greek philosopher and the Jewish 
allegorist of Alexandria accepted, and to that perpe- 
tuity of physical impulses and feelings which has been 
frequently held by Christian teachers of a later epoch, 
and also believed by many uncivilized races, to consti- 



190 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

tute the only true immortality of man. Many of these 
creeds, which strongly affirm the spirituality of God, as 
strongly affirm a material, and eveu sensuous resurrec- 
tion. This, as is well known, is peculiarly the case 
with Mohammedanism. Our own age and race have 
developed a still grosser theory in Mormonism, which 
asserts the being of a material god, and promises its 
devotees a voluptuous immortality. 

The researches of modern science have shown that 
the earth is a vast graveyard, wherein are buried not 
only the bodies of innumerable creatures, but where 
extinct forms of life, more numerous by far than all 
existing organisms, lie entombed. Man, the latest born 
of these forms, has inherited for his portion the sep- 
ulchre of a thousand successive worlds. The eternal 
hills of his experience are, in comparison with regions 
which look far less permanent, recent structures, built by 
some vast upheaval out of the bed of a deep but geo- 
logically modern sea. The only unchanged forai is the 
ever-shifting ocean, which has at one time engulfed, at 
another relinquished the land here and there. And the 
succession of these epochs involves so prolonged a 
period of time, that the mind is wholly lost in attempt- 
ing to give reality to that which is as illimitable as 
space. Creation reaches back through an incalculable 
series of years, during which the earth, now shaken by 
internal fire, now reeking with a continuous summer, 
now bound in permanent winter, was rushing round 
the sun, and hurrying with the company of its fellow- 
planets through space. The beginning is infinitely dis- 



TEACHINGS OF MODERN SCIENCE. 191 

tant. Man is a being of yesterday, even when the 
remotest period which modern speculation suggests is 
assigned to his appearance on the earth. There are a 
few inhabitants of the primeval seas which have pre- 
served their organisms, which have remained unaltered 
through these multitudinous cataclysms which have 
overtaken the earth, through those furious storms which 
at various periods have desolated creation. But man 
has only appeared in the most recent epoch of the 
world's history. Can his existence be the sign of the 
world's last renovation, of a peaceful and steady growth, 
the consummation of which is a new heavens and a 
new earth? To the men of the apostolic age, the 
earth had waxed old, and was ready to pass away. If 
we, so many centuries after their time, hold to their 
faith, the race of man was in the infancy of its true 
destiny, was commencing its career, whe-n they taught 
that the end of all things was at hand. 

Had the facts of modern science been unveiled to 
'the eyes of Paul, it does not appear that his exposition 
of the resurrection would have been different. It may 
be true, he might have answered, that the experience 
which we have of life connects it with an organism 
which is born, grows, decays, perishes. But the expe- 
rience which we appeal to is assuredly bounded. We 
may assert, but erroneously, that no other being exists 
beyond that which we can comprehend. There are, 
may be, other forms in which life is continued, nay is 
exalted, of which our faculties are not and cannot be 
cognizant, but after which the soul, the lieart, the spirit 



192 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

of man strives, in which it trusts that it may escape 
annihilation. This eager search after hfe and immor- 
tahty is the germ of that perpetual and unchangeable 
existence which resides in this body of death, which 
ever prompts the man to treat his present life as the 
preparation for an unlimited eternity. Such a longing 
for the perfection of God is a gift of unspeakable value 
to the possessor, is a cause of immeasurable benefit to 
man, is by its very presence a pledge that it will be cer- 
tainly satisfied, however little its fulfilment comes within 
the range of experience, or agrees with its inductions. 

The Gospel of redemption and immortality was, 
according to. Paul's teaching, to be preached and 
offered to all men. It is evident that the Apostles at 
Jerusalem shrank from carrying the tenets of Chris- 
tianity beyond the pale of the Jewish nation. The 
Acts of the Apostles gives no color to those legends 
which scatter the Twelve in various parts of the earth. 
St. Paul's words in the Epistle to the Galatians indi- 
cate that the Apostles were at Jerusalem at the time 
of his conversion ; that they were there three years later, 
when he went up to visit Peter, but stood aloof from 
them; and suggest that they were there still, fifteen 
years after the first visit, when the mission of Paul to 
the Gentiles was finally admitted, the teaching of the 
Jewish converts being reserved to Peter. The absence, 
too, of any allusion to any other apostles in the other 
epistles and wiitiugs of the Apostolic Age, seems con- 
clusively to show that the Twelve lived together in 
poverty and prayer at Jerusalem. At last, Jerusalem 



CATHOLICITY OF PAUL'S MIND. 193 

having been, destroyed, and nearly all having been re- 
moved by death, John, in extreme old age, is said to 
have migrated to Asia Minor. 

The sincerity of conviction, the flexibility of charac- 
ter, the sagacity which discerned what was essential, 
the rigor with which the essentials of Christianity 
were insisted on, the tact with which men are treated, 
and the perfect catholicity of Paul's mind, gifted the 
Apostle with peculiar influence in commending his 
doctrine to the Gentile world. He is troubled with no 
scruples about race, rank, sex ; and he does not hamper 
himself with any attempt after eflecting a uniformity 
among his disciples or converts. Critics have affected 
to discover evidence compromising the authenticity of 
certain epistles. — as, for example, those to the Philip- 
pians, one to Timothy, and to Titus — in the flict that 
a hierarchy, or, at least, a scheme of general office- 
bearers, in certain churches is recognizable in these 
epistles. By itself, the objection does not seem to pos- 
sess the least importance. Had a particular form of 
church government been prescribed in any of these 
epistles, the acceptance of which was to be deemed 
necessary, or even important, grave doubts might well 
be thrown on the document, or, at least, on the passage 
in which such a rule might be found. But Paul was 
absolutely indifferent to the mere organization Avhich a 
Christian society might adopt. The man who bade 
that the service of the Church should be conducted 
decorously and in an orderly fashion, set no store by 
any particular process for effecting these ends. He 

9 ' M 



194 PAUL OF TABSUS. 

even puts little stress on the sacraments. He did not, 
it seems, practise baptism himself, except in rare in- 
stances. He mak^s, except on one occasion, no marked 
allusion to the Lord's Supper. With him religion was 
no outward form, however venerable or sacred it might 
be, but an inward light, bright enough to guide the 
whole heart and conscience, and yet capable of being 
diffused over the nature of the humblest and weakest. 

The Christianity of Paul was the first religion which 
invited all men into the brotherhood of the Faith. It 
is true that it did not pretend to attack the prevalent 
usages of society, to counsel resistance to the impe- 
rial system, to seek reform through political agencies, 
to construct the secular hfe of the existing generation 
anew, to prescribe a form of pohty, to break down any 
customary habit which is not in itself morally vicious. 
It was intended to be a community within a commu- 
nity, which was aggressive only by passive resistance 
to errors of opinion and grossness of practice, w^hich was 
intended to absorb, not to reconstitute society. To 
use a modern phrase, Christianity trusted to moral 
forces only, and trusted to them without making any 
reference to their indirect significance. As has been 
before observed, the conduct of the early Christians was 
exceedingly like that of the Quakers of Penn's age. 
They took no active part in opposition to popular prac- 
tices, but protested passively against them. Hence, at 
first sight, the Christianity of the Pauline gospel seems 
to be wanting in that force which reprobates or checks 
social and political wrong. Nay, some have gone so 



CHRISTIANITY AND SLAVERY. 195 

far as to argue that it condones or encourages the evil 
which it does not directly attack. Thus, it has been 
said to have counselled acquiescence in slavery, to have 
justified the extravagances of despotism, to have sub- 
stituted a dreamy quietism for that active resistance to 
the coarse excesses of insolent power which may be the 
highest duty that man can fulfil for his fellows. 

But this charge is in many particulars unjust, and 
even unintelUgent. It ignores the circumstances of the 
age in which Christianity was developed. It ignores 
the fact that the triumphs of passive resistance are 
more numerous, and have been more lasting, than those 
of energetic opposition. It fails to notice that a creed, 
which puts all men on the same level of necessity, and 
offers all the same magnificent hopes, is the heaviest 
discouragement to secular distinctions. It does not ac- 
knowledge that the genius of Christianity is a perpetual 
assertion of the equality of man, nor see that it meets 
that haughtiness which affects superiority over the 
general lot of humanity, — or which disdains to ac- 
knowledge any right or any justice which has not been 
conceded by power, — with the example of Christ, who 
made Himself of no reputation. It is the essence of 
Christianity, as taught by Paul, that man is bound to 
consider his duty before he asserts his rights, and that 
there is no claim which he can set up for eminence, 
which he ought not to substantiate by the service which 
he has done for it. Hence, the natural tendency of 
the Christian temper is towards political and social 
equality. The Judaizing teachers would have made it 



196 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

communistic, and Paul's good sense detected the peril 
of such a theory. If we look at his teaching from 
a modern point of view, the Apostle, in so far as he 
contemplated the reconstruction of society by the aid 
of Christianity, accepted the two leading conditions of 
what is called popular government, — that all social 
distinction should be personal, and that it should be 
won by public service. 

A sufficient refutation of the statement, that the 
social theory of primitive Christianity sustained or 
encouraged the harshness of the relations which sub- 
sisted between master and slave, is to be found in the 
eagerness with which the latter accepted it. Slavery, 
it is true, was a far less bitter lot in antiquity than it 
has been made within societies which are professedly 
Christian. The emancipation of slaves was common. 
They were frequently treated with kindness and con- 
sideration. They were permitted to acquke property, 
and even to purchase theii' own freedom. Their con- 
dition improved under the empire ; for slavery is never 
more cruel than when it is practised by a people hav- 
ing free political institutions, is always least onerous 
when all classes of society are in the grasp of a common 
despotism. It was made a social reproach against 
Christianity that it enrolled such numbers of slaves 
among its members. Bishops, in early times, were 
elected from this class of persons. Thus, Calhstus, 
bishop of Rome 218-233, was, according to Hippolytus, 
a slave of one Carpophorus, a confidential person in 
Caesar's household ; and, if we can trust the report of 



I 



ISLAMISM AND SOCIAL EQUALITY. 197 

this author, who vouches for his personal acquaintance 
with the facts, he was a swindler and knave. There 
will be no great attraction in a religion which does not 
seek to ameliorate the condition of those who embrace 
it. Besides, it is known that from early times, the pos- 
session of slaves was considered by Christian writers 
and teachers as contrary to the Christian notion of jus- 
tice, which imposes the duty of doing as one would be 
done by. It is certain that this notion has finally suc- 
ceeded in proscribing the practice as antichristian and 
inhuman, and that oppressed races have to thank the 
teaching of the New Testament for immunity from 
slavery. 

This doctrine of absolute equality between the mem- 
bers of a common religion was accepted in a still more 
practical form by Mohammed and his successors. As 
the promoters of this religion appealed to the sword, 
they were able to enforce such a general equality. It 
must be allowed that the success of Mohammedanism 
was as much due to the promise of equal privilege, in 
the case of all who accepted the new faith, as it was to 
the valor and enthusiasm of primitive Islam. The 
facility with which this religion is even now extended 
is to be accounted for by the fact that it is constantly 
brought in contact with a system of privileged castes 
and races, and that it effects the destruction of all 
these distinctions by conferring equal dignity on all its 
converts. It does not fall within the compass of this 
work to discuss the causes which have arrested the 
civilization which the Mohammedan creed achieved, 



198 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

and which have even caused it to retrograde from the 
height which it reached ten centuiies ago, at Bagdad 
and Cordova. It is sufficiently clear that the doctrine 
of the natural equality of man within the limits of the 
faith, and the comparative" tolerance with which Islam 
treated dissentients from its tenets, account for the re- 
markable jDhenomenon of a few Bedouins establishing 
a mighty empire, and developing science and philoso- 
phy, when these were almost unknown names to a 
mediaeval Christianity. N'or is it less clear, that the 
chief reason of the decline of Islam does not arise from 
its contact with European civilization, but from the 
barbarism of its later political system, and from the 
fanaticism of its Rabbis. 

As, according to Paul, the beginning of the Chris- 
tian life was trust in Christ, so the perseverance of the 
Christian was due to the grace of Christ, or as it is 
sometimes called, the Spiiit of Christ. The teaching 
of the book of Proverbs personified the wisdom of 
God ; the communications made from the Almighty 
to the Prophets of the Jewish monarchy, of the cap- 
tivity, and of the restoration, were effected by the 
instrumentality of the Word of God ; and these con- 
ceptions were still more fully solidified in the book of 
Sirach, in the Wisdom of Solomon, and in the Alex- 
andrian theosophy. That God thei-efore visited man 
by the instruments whom He had created or chosen, 
was a familiar fonn of thought to the Jews of the 
Christian era ; and when Paul speaks of Jesus as the 
power by which the union between God and man was 



NEED OF A MEDIATOR. 199 

achieved, he is using language which was perfectly in- 
telligible to his hearers. In course of time the Word 
of God had ceased to be an abstraction, and was con- 
ceived to be a Person. But the Personification was 
complete when this conception was united to an his- 
torical man, who alone among men had, after suflfering 
the common lot of humanity, vanquished the common 
enemy, was risen, was glorified, was out of the domin- 
ion of death, and had become the assurance of life and 
immortality. 

If men have any belief in God, and if they acknowl- 
edge, in their relations to Him, any thing beyond what 
is purely secular — if they do not allow His personal 
existence to disappear in Pantheistic generalities, they 
are forced to recognize some mediator between them- 
selves and Him. Thus, in the language of Paul, Moses 
was the mediator between the God of the Hebrews 
and that people, as Mohammed is said to be to Islam. 
So, in a far higher sense, because gifted with a far more 
exalted being, Christ is the Mediator of the new cov- 
enant, as well as the great atonement for mankind. 
And just as, during His life on earth, His gospel 
formed a perfect rule of life — a sufficient exposition 
of the faith — a full ground of hope, so He is present by 
His power, His Spirit, His gi*ace, though He no longer 
appears to the ordinary vision of men. He is known 
better to the believer than He was known to His disciples 
in the days of His flesh. Whatever other intermediary 
there might have been previously between God and 
man, such agencies are superfluous in the spiritual pres- 



200 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

ence and life-giving power of Christ. He unites all the 
imperfect and divided functions of priest, angel, spirit, 
in the intercourse which he holds with his people, — in 
the grace, peace, strength, hope, which He gives them. 
N'o phrase is too strong to express the power which He 
wields, the authority which He possesses, the gifts and 
graces which He can bestow. He lifts men from the 
sin and weakness of their mortal nature, bestows on 
them a new creation, reconciles them to God, supports 
and strengthens them in the toil of a transitory life, 
and conducts them finally to the presence of His Fa- 
ther and theirs. 

Paul dwells but little on the alternative to this pic- 
ture of the Christian life. The world around him was 
fiill of sin and wickedness, of ignorance and deformity. 
There are those who have no place in the kingdom, who 
have no inheritance with the saints, — with those who 
have been made holy by the sacrifice of Christ and by 
trust in Him ; but very little is said of such persons, 
apart fi-om reprobation of their life. The Apostle does 
not dwell upon the lot of the unblest — does not attempt 
to describe the condition of those who are cast away. 
He is not responsible for those theories of endless tor^ 
ment inflicted on unforgiven sin, still less for that 
scheme of the Divine justice and mercy, which would, 
in accordance with no moral sentiment whatever, 
capriciously condemn some persons to eternal banish- 
ment from the sight of God, to the perpetual company 
of mocking and malignant fiends. Christ died for the 
godless ; His love is sufficient for the salvation of the 



CHRISTIANITY'S DEBT TO PAUL. 201 

whole human race. It is enough to know how great 
is His mercy to those who love Him. It is superfluous 
to inquire into the future condition of those who dis- 
regard His Gospel, still more so to speculate on the lot 
of such men as have never heard the Word. Nay, 
if love be the most enduring of the Christian graces 
— living when trust is realized, and hope is satisfied — 
and if this be the chief attribute of God and His Son, 
it is incredible that he should be pitiless who com- 
mands pardon and pity as the best offering which man 
can make Him. The Gospel which Paul preached has 
much to win men, little to terrify them. The pre- 
sumptuous insolence which seeks to make the Almighty 
the author of uncharitable and merciless judgment was 
unknown to the man who was all things to all men, in 
order that he might gain some, and who believed that 
he had the mind of Christ. 

Christianity owes the form which it has assumed, 
when it has been best interpreted, to the Pauline 
scriptures. The gospels give us a history, in which 
the facts of a life, the sayings and lessons of a great 
Teacher are narrated. But, except in the fourth gos- 
pel, the theology of the narrative does not develop 
much more religion than can be found in the pages of the 
evangelical prophets. With the first three evangelists, 
Christ is the last, though incomparably the greatest, of 
those to whom the Vision of God was vouchsafed, in 
whom the Spirit of God was manifested. In the fourth 
gospel. He is the Word incarnate, in whom exist the 
loftiest powers, — who is with God from the beginning, 
9* 



202 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

— who IS in full coTnmunion with the Everlasting Fa^ 
ther, — who has life from the Father in Himself, as the 
Father Himself is the source and centre of all life. 

In the gospel of Paul, Christ is an Example, but also 
a Power. He is the source of man's salvation, and the 
origin of all graces. Paul tells us that he announced 
a simple creed, — that " Christ died for our sins accord- 
ing to the Scriptures ; that he was buried, and rose 
again the third day, according to the Scriptures ; " and 
that abundant evidence was supphed to the fact. This 
is his gospel. Out of it he constructed his theology, 
by it he insisted that the reconciliation between the 
creature and Creator was effected. This is the chief 
element which he imports into the ancient doctrines of 
the Hebrew Scriptures, as they were understood by 
the doctors of the Christian era. God is still there, as 
He is described in the Prophets, a Being of infinite 
love, patience, gentleness. The commandment of God 
is still imperative on man, and must be interpreted, as 
heretofore, by its real spirit. Only the Law is done 
away — the ritual of Moses — its ordinances, sacrifices, 
ceremonies, with all the glosses of tradition. Not, indeed 
that the repeal of these enactments, the abandonment 
of this symbolism, is to inaugurate a period of license 
■ — to release man from his allegiance to that spiritual 
religion which purifies the heart. Far from it. The 
epistles of Paul abound with directions as to how man 
may live holily, reiterate the obligations of those who 
ally themselves to this new religion. Every one of 
4he relations of domestic and social life pass under the 



CHRISTIANITY ACCORDING TO PAUL. 203 

Apostle's review, and are commented on repeatedly. 
The Christianity which he taught does not infonn men 
that the acceptance of certain tenets can be made sub- 
stitutes for the regular fulfilment of moral duties — 
that obedience to stated ceremonies is the obedience 
with which God is satisfied, or is in itself a purification. 
He allows no man to say Corbaji, and thus pretend that 
a gift to the altar is a release from human ties. He 
exacts honest, persevering, intelligent work, as strictly 
as a political economist does. He knew that the 
largest power of doing good was contingent on the 
fulfilment of very homely and every-day offices — that 
few men are able to do real public service who neglect 
their ordinary business, and sacrifice common sense to 
some ideal wish. He had too much practical wisdom 
to be ignorant of the fact, that a man is not the worse 
Christian because he masters the cares of this life by 
his diligence, and that the best way to use one's sub- 
stance well, is to earn one's substance honestly. That 
which binds the whole of Christianity together — 
which efiects the unity of redeemed humanity — which 
constitutes the Church — is the presence, the indwell- 
ing of Christ. In this Christ are united all the power 
which God has given or will give, and all the tender- 
ness of that devoted and ceaseless love which made 
Him a sacrifice for man. But the gospel of Paul is 
neither ascetic, nor contemplative, nor dogmatic. Man 
is illuminated, not to dream, but to labor. He is to 
earn liis living — to seek by the toil of his life the 
means for conferring benefits on others, — to work out 



204 PAUL OF TABS US. 

his own salvation, to seek the salvation of others, and, 
as he best may, to commend his faith by the diligence, 
holiness, and perseverance of his life. 

It has been said truly by M. Yacherot, that Paul was 
the greatest of innovators and the least of sectaries. 
His gospel was intended for all mankind. The hopes 
which he held out to those who believed were not 
bounded by caste, or race, or sex, or condition of hfe, 
or age, or habit of thought, or power of thought. Had 
it been possible for those who constructed a theology 
from his writings to have apprehended the spirit in 
which those writings were composed, the world would 
have had a different history. The disciples of a great 
teacher, however, are not those who learn his formula- 
ries, and busy themselves with methodizing his prin- 
ciples, but they who seek to gather to themselves the 
mind of the teacher, who are followers of him in his 
attempt to evangelize the world. 

But, in fact, the dogmas which have been defended 
by the teaching of St. Paul, are not contained in his 
writings, but are developments for which those who 
propounded or accepted them strove to find proof or 
warranty. The Christianity of many modern sectaries 
is like the Salaminian ship, which, still pretending to be 
the vessel which carried Theseus, has now, by reason of 
perpetual repairs and additions, little left of the original 
timber. For Paul is not, technically speaking, a theolo- 
gian, since his theology is, except in one important 
particular, that of Gamaliel and the other orthodox 
teachers of later Judaism. Even after his conversion 



NATURE OF PAUL'S TEACHING. 205 

he could call himself a Pharisee. Upon Judaism he 
induced the oflSce of Christ, as the only and the com- 
plete solution of the question which had long agitated 
all religious minds, — How can man be saved ? This 
question is still asked by those who have repudiated 
Christianity, and, denying the immortality of the indi- 
vidual, assume the immortality of the race. And these 
persons answer the question in the same manner that 
Paul does, — that man in the aggregate is made j)erfect 
by the sacrifice of man, — that humanity gains by them 
who offer themselves as victims for its moral progress. 
Both agree that no good deed is wasted ; but the Apos- 
tle of the Gentiles, while he insists on the conditions 
which govern the regeneration of mankind, claims that 
a recompense remains for them who have devoted 
themselves on behalf of their fellows, and that the 
identity of the agent is as enduring as the force of 
the action. 

It is part of the irony of history, that men are 
often credited with opinions and motives which never 
controlled, or even influenced them. Of this perverse 
judgment, popular ideas about the Apostle Paul are 
conspicuous instances. He is sometimes considered as 
the author of those subtleties which took their rise in 
Alexandria, after Christianity was made to contribute 
to the syncretic philosophy of Philo, and which culmi- 
nated in the dialectical refinements of the fourth and 
fifth centuries. He is really a preacher who took Jew- 
ish monotheism, engrafted on it those limitless energies 
which he recognized in the mediation of Christ, and 



206 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

inculcated an intensely spiritual, as well as an exactly 
practical morality. He is occasionally spoken of as an 
egotist. But he was really a man of great judgment 
and gentleness, of attractive manners, of immense 
activity, — one side of whose nature was occupied by 
an absorbing love of Christ, the other by a passionate 
longing to communicate the joys and hopes which he 
entertained as widely as possible throughout a suffering 
world. 



I 



CHAPTER VI. 

'THHE apocryphal or legendary literature of early 
-*■ Christianity is very copious. Much has been 
already printed, and additions are constantly made to 
what is known. Dr. Tischendorf has lately collected a 
fresh volume of these writings. But his publication 
probably embraces only a part of that which still exists 
in manus'^.ript. If all these relics of theological 
romance were collected, they would form only a 
small fragment of what has been written. Some of 
these writings enshrine historical facts and genuine 
traditions. According to the modern canons of criti- 
cism, the flict that a story is unknown out of the par- 
ticular region in w^hich it is current, rouses a suspicion 
of its genuineness, which is quite distinct from its 
intrinsic likelihood or improbability. But modern 
criticism is, perhaps, apt, in interpreting the genuine- 
ness of records, to be led into conceiving that the 
writings of ancient authors were constructed on the 
method employed in our own day. In much ancient 
history, when the writer lives amid or near the events 
which he narrates, the facts are subordinated to the 
inference, or colored and selected to assist the infer- 
ence. But the narrative may still be a real reflection 



208 PAUL OF tarsus! 

of the age in which it is written. It seems an ex- 
travagance of scepticism to look on the Annals of 
Tacitus as little better than a political romance, the 
biographies of Suetonius as a mere epitome of court 
scandal. 

These apocryiDhal writings of early Christianity may 
be subjected to one easy test. The dramatic tendency 
which certainly influences the authors of these narra- 
tives generally supplies the means fbr detecting the 
age of the story, and sometimes the motive for its com- 
position. We have historical evidence of the growth 
of theological dogma ; and when divisions arose in the 
Church, during the time that dogmas were being crys- 
tallized, the temptation to make the story a vehicle for 
the transmission or defence of a dogma was irresistible. 
The absence of dogmatic coloring is not a proof of 
the authenticity of such writings, but is good evidence 
of their antiquity. 

Some of the most ancient of these compositions, — 
as the Pastor of Hermas, and the epistle of Barnabas, 
— were introduced into early manuscripts of the New 
Testament Scriptures, and, for a time at least, were 
received as authorities. Some of these, which a later 
criticism accepted as canonical, were rejected or sus- 
pected in an earlier age, as for example the Apocalypse. 
It is not unlikely that this acceptance or rejection was 
due, in the first instance, to the fact that some had been 
widely distributed and others had only a local circula- 
tion. 

Among the earliest specimens of this legendary 



f 



PAUL'S PERSONAL APPEARANCE. 209 

literature, is a story entitled the Acts of Paul and 
Thecla. The story, alluded to by Tertullian, has 
latterly been republished in the original Greek, by Dr. 
Tischendorf. It is a narrative of the sufferings under- 
gone by a damsel of Iconiura, who had heard the 
preaching of St. Paul, and who resolved to abandon all 
— lover, home, friends — for the sake of the gospel 
which he preached, and in honor of the preacher. The 
earnest and self-denying attachment which the early 
Christians bore to their teachers in the Faith, is 
frequently alluded to by the Apostle, and is scornfully 
commented on by Lucian, in his narrative of the 
exploits of the charlatan Peregrinus. Thecla, like 
Lydia, was one of those female converts of primitive 
Christianity, whose heart the Lord opened, and who 
ministered to the wants of the apostles. 

The Acts of Thecla give a portrait-description of the 
Apostle's person and physiognomy. This description 
is probably the origin of those other accounts of Paul's 
appearance in the flesh, which are found, for example, 
in John Malalas and Nicephorus. He was, we are told, 
short in stature, almost bald, bow-legged, stout, with 
eyebrows meeting, and with a prominent nose. Other 
accounts add that he had small but piercing gray eyes. 
His manner was, it is said, singularly winning. His 
face and figure must have been markedly of the He- 
brew type. He has himself commented on the mean- 
ness of his personal appearance, and the unattractive 
delivery which characterized his speech. To translate 
his homely phrase, his oratory, he says, was nothing to 



210 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

speak of. But he, nevertheless, could call to witness 
the success of his ministry, when he claimed to possess 
a transcendent treasure, enclosed though it was in an 
earthen vessel. The poverty of the casket served to 
assist the lustre of the jewel it contained, the plainness 
of the setting called attention to the worth of the gem. 
The great Apostle, then, was a man who did not 
possess the two gifts which were most prized in the 
ancient world — personal beauty and fluency of speech. 
He did not command, attention by the majesty of his 
person, or rivet attention by the eloquence of his utter- 
ances. To outward appearance, he must have looked 
like some common-place travelling Jew, whose rapid 
and confused speech ]3rovoked the Athenians into 
calling him a blabbler, when, quitting his ordinary 
province, — that of arguing with the Jews and their 
proselytes in the synagogue, — he essayed to dispute 
with the polished loungers in the Athenian agora. 
But this speech, homely, unadorned, rugged as it might 
have been, possessed two characteristics which are 
more persuasive than the subtlest oratory. The speaker 
was thoroughly convinced of that which he said, and 
profoundly in earnest when he commended his convic- 
tions to others. The gr6at master of ancient eloquence 
said that dramatic action was the first, second, third 
requisite of successful pleading ; but no art can rival in 
its effects the outspoken utterances of disinterested 
sincerity, no address is more certain to command the 
sympathy of an audience, than that of a man who 
pleads from his heart. 



HIS BIRTHPLACE AND LINEAGE. 211 

Paul was born at Tarsus, a city of Cilicia, — no mean 
city, as the Apostle called it, with the natural feeling of 
a man for his birthplace, and the home of his childhood. 
The city was built on a plain at the foot of Mount Tau- 
rus, and through it flowed the stream of the Cydnus, 
which, rising in the snows of the mountain, and gushing 
through deep ravines, was notable for the coldness of 
its waters. The river, says Strabo, divides the town, 
and the gymnasium of the youths was on its bank. 

The same author informs us, — writing at a time 
when St. Paul must have been a child in this Cilician 
city, — that the inhabitants of Tarsus were so ad- 
dicted to philosophy, and took such a general interest 
in every branch of education, that the reputation of the 
city exceeded even that of Athens and Alexandria — 
the great centres of intellectual activity and of high 
culture. And it is remarkable, continues this authority, 
that the students are not strangers who visit the city, as 
they do at most of these ancient academies, but are the 
natives of the district; most of whom, when they have 
gained the learning which the schools of Tarsus supply 
them with, migrate to other places, and rarely return. 

There is very little recorded about the family of Paul. 
He tells us himself, that he was of pure Hebrew de- 
scent, the phrase that he uses being probably the equiv- 
alent of that which a Spaniard took pride in when he 
called himself an old Christian. He was of the tribe of 
Benjamin, and was perhaps named after the gallant, 
wilful king whose chivalry, comeliness and lofty stature 
were so exceptional. We are informed that his father 



212 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

belonged to the strictest school of the Pharisaic sect, 
and that his son was reared in the same discipline. 
We know further, that his father was a Roman citizen, 
either by purchase or grant. Add the facts that his 
sister had a son, who either lived at Jerusalem, or, as is 
equally probable, had come up to the holy city at the 
time when his uncle made his last unfortunate visit 
there, and that he had five other kinsmen, two of whom 
had become Christians before himself, and all that we 
know of his family is told. The alternative name of 
the Apostle, that by which he is best known, was ap- 
parently part of the Gentile name, by which, in con- 
formity with Roman usage, the citizen was designated. 
Paulus is a cognomen shared by many families, as 
might have been easily the case, for it means a person 
of small stature, and such nicknames were common in 
the days of republican Rome. Silas or Silvanus, a 
companion of St. Paul, was similarly a Roman citizen, 
and so, it would seem, was Lucas or Lucanus, whom we 
know as the third Evangelist, and the author of the 
work called the Acts of the Apostles, in which are con- 
tained a few selected incidents of the Apostolic age. 
Paulus is only one of three Roman names which the 
Apostle bore. We know nothing of the other two. 

The fact that St. Paul learned a trade in his youth 
gives us no hint as to the social circumstances in which 
he was born and brought up. It is well known that 
the doctors of the Jewish law prescribed the instruc- 
tion of every male child in som'e handicraft. Eastern 
nations have no conception of an hereditary aristocracy, 



THE EDUCATION OF PAUL. 213 

— of a class which is made leisurely by the possession 
of inherited wealth. As among Mussulman communi- 
ties at the present day, so among the Semitic races of 
the Christian era, a king might lift a beggar from the 
dunghill to set him among princes, and as easily com- 
pel him to revert to his original condition. Some oc- 
cupation, therefore, was universally taught to the youth, 
by which, should misfortune overtake him, the man 
might earn his bread. "He who does not teach his 
son a trade," said the Rabbis, "teaches him to be a 
thief" — I.e., a Bedouin, or a brigand. So the young 
Saul, living at Tarsus, was instructed in the craft of a 
local industry — the manufacture of goats' hair into a 
strong cloth for tents. This cloth was called cilicium, 
from the province in which it was first manufactured, 
and in low Latin was used — perhaps is still used — to 
designate the hair shut worn by ascetics and devotees. 
There was a time in his life when the Apostle found his 
skill useful, though it does not, I think, follow necessa- 
rily, that he was actually engaged in the manual labor 
of a hand-loom weaver at Corinth. 

After a time, — but at what time we know not, — 
the youth was sent to Jerusalem, to be taught by the 
most eminent of the Jewish doctors, — the last and 
the gi'eatest of the Hebrew schoolmen. Gamaliel was 
the grandson of Hillel. As the Acts of the Apostles 
tells us, he was an honored teacher among the Jews, 
and a man of good sense and moderation. The Gemara 
is full of stories about him, illustrating his influence, 
orthodoxy, and wit. Tims, he is made to talk famil- 



214 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

iarly with Caesar, — by whom is probably meant Au- 
gustus, — and to have vindicated the Jewish narrative 
of man's creation, and the doctrines of the soul's im- 
mortality and the body's resurrection, by citations of 
Scripture and ingenious parables. It is possible that 
his pupil Saul was one of those Cilician Jews who dis- 
puted with Stephen. We know that he was in that 
furious rabble which, goaded by the reproaches of the 
eloquent and zealous deacon, shed the first Christian 
blood. As Paul obtained his knowledge of Greek lit- 
erature in Tarsus, so he learned the mysteries of Jewish 
casuistry at th§ feet of Gamaliel in Jerusalem. It 
appears, too, that Paul had some permanent home in 
Tarsus, for there Barnabas sought and found him, when 
the two Apostles of the Gentiles set out on their first 
formal mission. 

It does not seem that Paul's circumstances were 
mean. He constantly travels by sea, and with some 
retinue. That he freely spent his substance on his 
companions, and on those who might need his assist- 
ance, is to be expected from the generous character of 
the man. That he was intensely sensitive to any sus- 
picion of mercenary motives, is well known. That he 
did not hesitate to assert his right to the assistance of 
his converts, and that he was exceedingly averse to 
insisting on the satisfaction of that right, are perfectly 
consistent traits. But this jealous love of indepen- 
dence did not deter him from accepting assistance which 
was urged on him, nor did any false shame prevent him 
from acknowledging such gifts with affectionate grat- 



EIS WORLDLY CIRCUMSTANCES. 215 

itude. He kn'ew distinctly that any service, however 
great it may be, is instantly suspected, and certainly 
tainted, if any charge of self-interest can be alleged 
against the doer of it. That he suffered occasional 
privations, due to temporary causes, was to be expected 
fi'om the missionary life which he undertook. But a 
pauper could not have lived for a long time in Ephesus. 
It was the most frequented city in Asia, and therefore 
was a place where no one could have resided except at 
considerable expense. Besides, during his residence he 
made acquaintance, in a somewhat intimate fashion, 
with some of the " chiefs of Asia." It appears that 
when he was imprisoned at Csesarea, Felix expected 
that he might make offer of a bribe, so as to procure a 
release from his confinement, and the bribes which cor- 
rupt Roman governors took were large. Nor again at 
the closing period of his recorded history, when, if at 
any time, his circumstances would have been desperate, 
does he seem to have been impoverished. Some of his 
friends accompany him, apparently as passengers, in 
the ship whose sign was Castor and Pollux ; and in 
Rome, where Juvenal tells us the cost of subsistence 
was excessive, the Apostle lives in his own hired house, 
the soldier who kept him in a kind of free custody 
being quartered on him. We find that this house was 
large enough to receive such visitors as waited on him, 
and to contain an audience. 

These fiicts have been commented on, not with a view 
to attempting a life of the Apostle, — an undertaking 
which has been frequently essayed, and never with 



216 PAUL OF TABS US. 

success, but because the circumstances which have 
been adverted to should be stated, in order to form an 
estimate of St. Paul's character as a man, and his work 
as a missionary. For he is really the missionary- Apos- 
tle, — chosen, set apart to carry the good tidings to all 
the nations, to found churches, to train preachers. It 
was he and his disciples who " turned the world upside 
down." With three exceptions, the names of those 
who had followed Jesus up to his passion disappear 
from sacred history after the catalogue is given in the 
Acts of the Apostles, — always occupy an inferior 
place to Philip, Stephen, and James. In the infancy 
of the Christian Church, Jolm is associated with Peter ; 
a httle further on, and James the brother of John 
drinks of the cup and undergoes the baptism, which 
Christ, with affectionate sadness, predicted would be 
the lot of the sons of Zebedee. Later legends give us 
the history of the apostolic dispersion, and at last 
assign his mission to each of the Twelve and describe 
the acts of his martj-Tdom. In all likehhood, however, 
as they were at Jerusalem on the occasion of Paul's 
first visit, so most of them remained there as an apos- 
tolic college, under the presidency of James, known as 
the brother of our Lord, till death removed them one 
by one, or till the siir^dvors, foreseeing the fall of the 
Holy City and the ruin of their race, fled to some 
place of refuge beyond the Jordan. It is probably at 
this time that the voice from Patmos is raised, and the 
Christian Church is instructed in the mystic vision of 
the future Providence of God. Last of all, the gospel 
of Christ's discourses is published. 



ZEAL OF THE DISPERSED JEWS. 217 

It seems clear that the resident Christians of Jeru- 
salem excited little animosity on the part of those rival 
sects whose hatred toward Christ was so furious and so 
inveterate. It is true that immediately on the formar- 
tion of the Church the boldness of men like Peter, and 
John, and Stephen brought persecution on the fiithful. 
But at that time the death of Jesus was fresh in the 
memory of men, and the hierarchy became alarmed 
and indignant at being charged with his murder. Nor 
do we know what were the causes which led to the 
execution of James and the imprisonment of Peter. 

The author of the Acts of the Apostles tells us that 
the execution pleased the Jews. It is possible that, for 
a few years after the crucifixion, the events which pre- 
ceded the Easter of His Passion may have recurred to 
the memory of those who took part in that crime, and 
that the hate which, as the Roman historian tells us, is 
felt by the wrong-doer to his victim, may have roused 
the people to acts of hostility against the companions 
or disciples of Christ. During the middle ages, it was 
a common thing for the populace to be roused to 
excesses against the Jews by inflammatory orations 
preached on the Passion of Christ at Easter time. It 
is seen, too, that the dispersed Jews who did pilgrim- 
age to Jerusalem at the Passover were more easily 
stirred to fanatical outbursts of rage than the settled 
inhabitants of the city ; and they who profited by their 
first-fruits and their offerings were not unlikely to con- 
ciliate them by zeal against those who might be sup- 
posed to be unfriendly to Jewish nationality and the 
10 



218 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

Law of Moses. It may be, too, that James and Peter 
— one of whom, by reason, it seems, of the vehemence 
of his character, was surnamed, with his brother, " the 
son of thunder ; " the other, the chief witness of Christ's 
life — may have provoked this sudden onslaught by 
reproaches similar to those which were uttered by 
Stephen, and have led Agrippa to consider that policy 
demanded the saciifice of these troublesome sectaries. 
It was the last attack on the Apostolic college, as far 
as we have information in the Acts of the Apostles. 
Afterwards, we are told, the Word of God grew and 
multiplied. There was nothing, indeed, in the charac- 
ter and practice of the Jewish Christians which could 
cause permanent hostility to the Church of Jerusalem. 

Agrippa had been one of those adventurers of royal 
blood, who swarmed at the courts of the Roman em- 
perors. Following the traditions of the Republic, 
the emperors maintained a number of dependent mon- 
archs in the outlying parts of the empire, as in the 
interior of Afi'ica, in Syria and in Asia JVIinor. They 
set up, and deposed these puppets at pleasure. They 
encouraged pretenders to plead their rival claims at 
Rome. Sometimes a kingdom was made a province, 
and afterwards constituted anew into a kingdom, with 
the same or altered boundaries. 

The imperial house had hitherto shown great favor 
to the Jews. Julius Caesar had received important 
assistance from the nation at a crisis of his fortunes, 
and he had not been uno-rateful. Auorustus followed 
the same policy. He confii-med Herod the Great in 



AOBIFFA, FRIEND OF CALIGULA. 219 

his sovereignty over Juclea, and, during the reign of 
this astute king, the Jews prospered and preserved a 
form of independence ; for Herod's wrath fell mainly 
on his wives, his children, and his nobles. The jest of 
Augustus, that he would rather be Herod's hog than 
his son, is well known. Either by design or from 
caprice, the monarchy of Herod was not continued to 
his sons, for they received only small portions of their 
father's extensive dominions, while the greater part of 
Palestine was committed to the rule of a procurator 
who was subordinated to the proconsular governor of 
Syria. Such a procurator was Pilate, who was in the 
first instance a creature of Sejanus, and had, perhaps 
to please his patron, as well as to indulge his natural 
savageness of temper, treated the Jews with extreme 
harshness. The fall of Sejanus occurred a little before 
the murder of Christ ; and the affectation of justice, 
the comparative gentleness of the procurator's manner 
in dealing with the Jewish authorities, the symbolical 
protest against the iniquity of condemning the right- 
eous, and the concession to the threat of being rep- 
resented as unfaithful to the jealous and suspicious 
Tiberius, point to the alarm and anxiety which Pilate 
felt at the crisis when the priests led Christ before the 
governor. 

Agrippa had been the friend and companion of Calig- 
ula, and the confidant of his secrets. He had shared 
those furtive pleasures which Caligula ventured on, 
during the lifetime of Tiberius, when the man's real 
nature was unknown to any one but his closest asso- 



220 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

ciates, and to the dark, shrewd old emperor. In order 
to maintain his appearance at court, and to further his 
intrigues after the throne of the great Herod, Agrippa 
had involved himself terribly in debt ; for in those evil 
days, nobles and princes borrowed largely in order to 
find the means for profligacy and bribery, with the cer- 
tainty that they would be able to recover their for- 
tunes from subjects or provincials if they could get a 
kingdom or the administration of a province. Thus, 
Agrippa borrowed largely of Alexander Lysimachus, 
the rich Alabarch of Alexandria, stipulating that half 
the sum should be paid at Alexandria, the other half 
at Puteoli (another illustration, by the way, of the 
manner in which the Jews carried on their banking 
operations) ; of Antonia, the mother of Claudius ; and, 
finally, of a rich Samaritan who lived at Rome and 
was a fi-eedman of Claudius. But, up to the time when 
Tiberius died, Agrippa had been the unluckiest of 
adventurers. His prospects were then at the worst, 
for the emperor had not only slighted his suit, but had 
cast him into prison. 

On the accession of Caligula, he was instantly 
released and loaded with favors. The emperor gave 
him a chain of gold, the weight of which was equal 
to that of the fetters with which he had been loaded. 
He made him king of the Jews, bestowing on him that 
which he had so long sought for in vain. Agrippa 
hastened to take possession of his kingdom, but was 
imprudent enough to exhibit himself in royal pomp at 
Alexandria, where the Jews were at that time exceed- 



COURAGE OF AQRIPPA. 221 

ingly unpopular. The last recorded circumstance of 
his public life — a similar but a more scandalous exhi- 
bition of vanity — is well known to all who read the 
Scriptures, and is also narrated by Josephus. 

Agrippa seems to have been the only man whom 
Caligula really loved. When the emperor became 
insane, and the whole world was subjected to the 
caprice of a cruel and sensual madman, Agrippa still 
influenced him. At last, Caligula declared himself a 
god, and bade the empire worship him, and the empire 
submitted with alacrity to the amazing degradation. 
The Jews alone refused to commit this act of impiety, 
and Caligula ordered that a statue of himself should 
be forthwith set up in the Temple at Jerusalem. Had 
the command been obeyed at once, there is little doubt 
that the outbreak which tasked the energies of Ves- 
pasian and Titus would have been anticipated by thirty 
years. 

At this crisis, Agrippa threw himself in the very 
path of the madman, as he was on the full course of 
his frenzy. He addressed a letter to him, in which he 
implored him not to take this step. The letter is pre- 
served in that work of Philo which narrates the suffer- 
ings of the Alexandrian Jews, and the attempts they 
made to conciliate the emperor. The effort must have 
cost Agrippa infinite anxiety. It was certainly an act 
of singular heroism ; it was as if he had cast himself to 
the wild beasts of the circus, for he risked life and all 
that he had lived for. Agrippa had been a voluptuary 
and an adventurer ; he had been the meanest thing the 



222 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

world had ever seen — a courtier of the early empire ; 
but in this act he showed the courage of the Maccabees, 
from whom he was descended. It is only justice to him 
to believe that he counted the cost, and that he delib- 
erately ventured every thing to save the Temple from 
profanation, the Jews from an inexpiable insult, and the 
empire from a desperate war. He gained delay by his 
remonstrance, and Cahgula's death put an end to the 
danger. 

These facts in the life of Agrippa have been men- 
tioned because they show that, although he had been 
corrupted by the influences of the Roman court, and had 
flattered the worst vices of the worst men in the worst 
age of the world's history, he was yet saved from utter 
degradation, and roused to courage by the religion 
which kept its hold on him. That motive, which was 
strong enough to make a hero of Agrippa, and which 
might have made him a martyr, if the dagger of Chae- 
rea had not shortened the career of Caligula, animated 
eveiy Jew. The Jew was of a race, according to 
Cicero, that was born for ser\dtude. But no race ever 
struggled more earnestly for its faith and its nationality 
than that of Israel did ; and, dispersed and broken as it 
is, none has ever maintained both with greater fidelity, 
none has illustrated more clearly how powerful passive 
resistMice may be. 

It has been observed that from the days of the elder 
Agrippa, the Church at Jerusalem enjoyed unbroken 
quiet. Its chief ofl&cer was a devout ascetic, for James 
lived according to the strictest rules which 'the Law 



PAUL'S '• THORN IN THE FLESHy 223 

prescribed to the profession of a Nazarite. His mode 
of life resembled that of those anchorites, the Trap- 
pists of ancient history, who lived by the Lake Ma^- 
reotis, under the name of Therapeutae, and were 
probably the representatives of the Buddhist mission 
which was sent to Egypt in the days of Ptolemy Phil- 
adelphus. The knees of James became horny by the 
constant attitude of prayer. Josephus, who narrates 
the circumstances of his death, states that the man was 
highly honored and respected. Strict in the fulfilment 
of those obligations which the Law imposed, the col- 
lege at Jerusalem may have been looked on as a mere 
offshoot of the Pharisaic sect, which provoked no 
antipathy on the part of the Jewish hierarchy, because 
it advised no innovation on the practice of orthodox 
Israel. 

The physical constitution of St. Paul was weakly, — 
as in the case of many men who have been charac- 
terized by great mental vigor and unsparing energy ; 
his bodily powers seemed wholly inadequate to the 
task which he undertook. Besides, he underwent 
labors and hardships which were sufficient to try the 
endurance of the strongest frame, of any frame; for 
it is often the case that certain privations are borne 
better by the weakly than by the robust. It is well 
known, moreover, that he speaks of some peculiar trial 
to which he was subject, a trial which he designates 
as a messenger of Satan. It has been suggested that 
this was some sensuous impulse. But this interpreta- 
tion is erroneous as well as offensive. The "thorn" is 



224 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

some sudden racking pain ; some constitutional infirmity 
which agonizes or prostrates the sufferer for a time. 
The word which has been translated thorn, is properly 
a sharp stake. A verb formed from it is used to denote 
crucifixion or impalement. A paroxysm of such pain 
would leave the patient "buffeted," i.e. sore and 
uneasy; the word expressing, in popular language, the 
feeling of having been bruised or beaten. It may be 
observed that such bodily afflictions were supposed, in 
accordance with the language employed at the com- 
mencement of the book of Job, to be injuries inflicted 
by Satan — the accuser, who is permitted by God to 
stretch forth his hand against the servants of the Most 
High, but who cannot touch their life. The dominant 
notion of modern theology, which makes the incite- 
ment to sensual impulses, and other sins against the holi- 
ness, the majesty, the providence, and the will of God, 
an act of an ever-watchful and malignant spirit who 
tries to drag down into his own misery those who are 
ordained for a higher destiny and loftier hopes, was at 
least an undeveloped opinion in the Apostolic age. St. 
James tells us, that sin is the spontaneous following of 
a man's own lusts and appetites. The devil of St. 
Peter's epistle who goes about, seeking whom he may 
devour, is plainly a human, and not a spiiitual foe — 
a persecutor, but not a seducer. 

The Apostle suffered, then, from some intermittent or 
recurrent malady. It was probably to this disease that 
the pallid look, which all his descriptive portraits 
specify of him, was due. I have little doubt that the 



Was PAUL MARRIED? ' 225 

disease was neuralgic. One conjecture as to its nature 
has been made, which appears to he plausibly supported 
by certain passages in the epistles and elsewhere. It is 
that he suffered from weakness of sight. It is supposed 
that his writing to the Galatians " in such large letters " 
is one hint. Another is in his saying, that some who 
loved him would have plucked out their right eyes for 
his service. A third is gathered from his mistake 
about the high priest. But not one of these passages 
is conclusive, and none suggest the strong fierce pain 
which the word employed by the Apostle to describe 
his suffering naturally signifies. It is, however, a mat- 
ter of obvious interest to know what was the physical 
hindrance which Paul suffered from, and from which his 
resolute and devout spirit gathered consolation and 
even strength. The honor we entertain towards those 
who have conferred inestimable benefits on mankind is 
not lessened when we learn what were their physical 
ailments, what were the personal hindrances which 
they had to battle with, in addition to the enormous 
toil which must be undergone by those who, in God's 
name, and for man's sake, strive to teach an ignorant, 
and purify a corrupt workl. We do not care to know 
these things because they show that such eminent per- 
sons are so much like ourselves, but because we would 
understand how the power which stirred and strength- 
ened them was so vast, so effectual, so divine, as to 
overcome what seem to be insurmountable obstacles. 

It was an early question whether the Apostle waa 
married. The passage in the Epistle to the Corin- 
10* o 



PAUL OF TARSUS. 



thians, in which he speaks of himself as unincumbered 
with domestic cares, does not preclude the notion that 
he might have been a widower — does not even prove 
more than that he went" on his missionary journeys 
alone. On the other hand, he speaks of his assent to 
the death of Stephen, and of his commission from the 
Sanhedrim, — functions and powers which could not 
well have been exercised by a man who was not a 
member of that council. But we are expressly told 
that this great assembly of the Jews included only 
fathers, in order to secure a merciful interpretation of 
the Law. An early explanation, too, of the "true yoke- 
fellow " at the Chm-ch in Philippi, — whom he bids 
labor to reconcile or assist Euodia and Syntyche, — 
recognizes the wife of the Apostle in the phrase. The 
epistle was, it may be said almost certainly, written 
from Rome, and during the time of that imprisonment 
in which the perils of the Apostle's situation were 
aggi'avated by sorrow, and ultimately by the desertion 
of jnany among his friends. 

The ascetic spirit which has induced men to forego 
domestic ties, and with them the reciprocal gentleness, 
unwearied love, unvaried patience, persevering energy, 
which should belong to the relations of husband and 
Vife, parent and child, — which do belong to them gen- 
erally, and which constitute the strongest sanctions of 
social life, — has been developed and inculcated for 
various reasons. There are persons who have, delib- 
erately and of purpose, shut themselves out from those 
attachments that they may serve their fellow-men the 



ARGUMENTS FOE CELIBACY. 227 

better, and so serve God. The very purity and beauty 
of these relations, and their paramount value in the 
organization of society; the fact that they are com- 
mended at once by clear reason and tender affection, 
make the sacrifice of him who could delight in them, 
but who resolutely avoids them, that he may give his 
undivided will and powers to the good of mankind, the 
highest effort of self-abnegation. Christ recognizes 
such a sacrifice ; but mth the significant hint that the 
sacrifice must be made with a real and intelligible 
purpose. 

Again, the celibate state was recommended by St. 
Paul expressly for temporary reasons. In view of the 
"present distress," — the tempest which was threaten- 
ing the infant Church, — it might be expedient to lessen 
the trials of life by diminishing the number of its ties. 
The Apostle's advice is simply that of a prudent man, 
who foresees the strain which human nature will be 
put to, and who dreads the risk. It is counsel given 
in aid of human weakness, while the case which Christ 
puts is of that strong and persistent heroism which 
knows no weakness. The Apostle bids men avoid suf- 
fering; the Master contemplates the example of the 
man who resolves to give his undivided and unimpeded 
energies to the highest ends. 

A third series of arguments in favor of celibacy was 
derived from that dualism which characterized Arian 
theosophy. In the view of this scheme, the body was 
an evil beast, to which the soul was linked, and from 
which it should seek freedom by a continual practice of 



228 PAUL OF TABS US. 

austerities. The Creator of man had, forsooth, bound 
him, Mezentius-like, to a corrupt and loathsome nature, 
from which he must strive to liberate himself — from 
which, in thought at least, he must live apart. The 
body was not, from this point of view, the instrument 
of life — the mechanism by which God's will might be 
done — but an evil and insatiate power, an ever-present 
enemy, which must be beaten down and crushed. That 
it should be allowed any pleasure, however innocent 
and pure, was to concede something to a foe who would 
seize every opportunity for mischief It is not unnatural 
that this morbid misconception of human life should 
have its reverse, and that there have been individuals, 
and even sects, who have earned thefr theory of the 
dual nature of man to such a length, as to believe that 
the indulgence of any appetite, however gross — of any 
practice, however debasing, — may leave the soul un- 
touched and untainted. Such a sect, we learn from the 
Gemara, existed among the Jews in the time of Gama- 
liel. " There are men," it is said, " who assert that they 
cannot sin, either with the soul or with the body. If 
the spii'it is divested of the body, it flies away like a 
bird. If the body is separated from the soul, it lies as 
senseless as a stone." The answer of the Jewish 
schoolman is in the form of a parable. " A certain king 
had a rich garden, full of ripe fruit, and he put as 
guardians into it two keepers — one lame, the other 
blind. The lame man, however, climbed on the blind 
man's back, and together they robbed the garden. 
When the owner came, and found that such a deed 



APOSTOLIC CELIBACY ACCIDENTAL. 229 

had been done, both culprits denied the act. How 
could I see the fruit ? said one ; how pluck it ? said the 
other. The wise king, however, was not deceived. 
He bade the lame man get on the blind man's back, 
and, binding them together, thus judged and punished 
both." 

And, lastly, the practice of celibacy has been advo- 
cated, because it has been found to suit the policy of 
religious despotism, and has aided in establishing an 
organization which has subserved a factitious object, by 
denying the affections any natural centre. It is almost 
supei-fluous to urge how entirely this practice has been 
enforced for sinister ends, how completely akin it is to 
the ultimate authority on which the Christian polity is 
founded. It was unknown to the Jewish discipline, it 
was a mere accident of the Apostolic age. It owes its 
sanction to the worst ambition which has ever perverted 
men, — the desire to control the religious sympathies 
of humanity in the interests of intolerance and aggres- 
sion. 

The revelation of the Almighty, in describing His 
love for His creatures, can use no more expressive word 
to denote His Providence than that of Father ; with 
all that it suggests of unwearied patience, forethought, 
goodness towards helpless infancy, trustful childhood, 
inquiring and impetuous youth. It has sanctified that 
affection which belongs peculiarly to mankind, by 
transferring it to the nature of God. And, shnilarly, 
the relations of the great Evangelist, the Mediator, 
the Saviour of Humanity, to the nature which He has 



230 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

exalted and redeemed, are figured under the similitude 
of that other tie which constitutes home, with its affec- 
tions, its reciprocal duties, its graces, its labors, its pur- 
poses. They who employed those facts of social life to 
illustrate the dealings of God with man, were, we may 
be sure, wholly devoid of that perverse spirit which 
has enslaved men to a morbid asceticism, or to a politic 
scheme of ecclesiastical government. Certainly, if Paul 
remained a celibate after his conversion to Christianity, 
his motive must have been that which Christ recognized 
and commended under such exceptional circumstances. 

As the Christians of the Apostolic age held marriage 
in honor, so they emancipated woman. The equality 
of all believers in the sight of God tolerated no social 
difference, no pride of race, no theory of an inferiority 
of sex. The Apostle would not break down the sub- 
ordination of a wife to her husband in the household. 
To have announced the domestic equality of the sexes 
would have been too violent a paradox for the age in 
which he lived, and Paul is at the pains to warn believ- 
ing matrons against presuming in temporal matters on 
account of their equality with men in the Church. 

In the world outside the Christian Church, women 
were generally in a position of marked inferiority. 
They were, according to the custom of Semitic nations, 
carefully secluded among the Jews, — for Philo reckons 
it among the grossest injuries which Flaccus did the 
Alexandrian Israelites, that he permitted the mob to 
break open the harem of the Jewish family, and to 
compel the women to remove their veils. What the 



CHRISTIANITY AND WOMAN. 231 

Jews thought of women generally may be gathered 
from the Book of Ecclesiasticus — a work written dur- 
ing the time of the Syrian domination. Tlie civiliza- 
tion of Greece never extended to her women. It is 
true that the haughty Roman heiress and matron had 
assumed great indej^endence — custom allowing an 
easy divorce. But this independence had become in 
many cases synonymous with licentiousness — if we can 
credit satirists and historians — though occasionally 
there might have been wives who deserved such grief 
as that of Paullus, whose virtues are celebrated in the 
exquisite elegy of Propertius. 

But Christianity raised women at once to the level 
of men. They presided over churches, they travelled 
as evangelists, they formed the earliest permanent 
order in the Christian ministry, under the name of 
deaconesses. It is true that at Corinth Paul would 
have silenced their preaching, but the command is 
probably local, and founded on special reasons. Try- 
phaena and Tryphosa are the types of a class. Aquila 
and Priscilla — always mentioned together — were the 
founders of the Church in Rome, the teachers of the 
learned Apollos, and continued their joint labors so 
long that they were the object of Paul's latest greetings. 
In Lucian, the old women and the widows take up the 
case of the impostor Peregrinus, and importune for his 
release. 

This equality of women with men, this honor paid to 
devout maidens and matrons, this dignity assigned to 
them in the domestic life of early Christianity, led, of 



232 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

course, to scandalous and malignant calumnies at the 
hands of unbelievers. The apologists of Christianity 
engage themselves in refuting these slanders. Justin 
tells a story of a young man of Alexandria who wished 
to publicly demonstrate his personal morality by the 
severest test. There was a little color for suspicion in 
the fact that Christianity was necessarily a secret 
society, and it was only too notorious that, among the 
heathen, mystical religious rites, to which only the 
initiated were introduced, were often a veil for gross 
debauchery. The circumstance which induced the ex- 
pulsion of the worship of Isis from Rome was, if we 
may trust Josephus, a scaudalous intrigue furthered, in 
consideration of a heavy bribe, by the priests of the 
Egyptian goddess. 

It is almost superfluous to say, that the Pauline 
epistles, in common with the rest of the New Testa- 
ment Scriptures, are full of exhortations to purity — 
full of warnings against unchastity in deed, word, and 
thought. It was an age of excessive grossness, of 
coarse licentious speech, and the Apostle would have 
no compromise with it whatever ; prescribed complete 
seclusion from its practices as the only preservative 
against its contagion. He exhorts his disciples to 
remember the pledge which they have given to their 
Maker and their Kedeemer, and to utterly put away 
fi'om themselves every thing which might lure them 
back to the wantonness which popular Paganism per- 
mitted, or even commended — which was suggested 
publicly, and practised openly. The discoveries at 



PAUL'S ARGUMENTS TO THE JEWS. 233 

Pompeii confirm the description given of the morals 
of Antioch. 

The powers which the Apostle possessed for the fur- 
therance of his mission were not, as has been stated, 
those of an imposing presence and rhetorical skill. He 
did not win his converts by impetuous denunciations, 
or by magnificent promises, or by practising on morbid 
fears. To the Jews he argued as one of their doctors 
would, that Christ was prefigured in the Law, and in 
the Prophets, and in the Holy Scriptures, — in the 
three divisions of the Jewish Bible. It was not diflfi- 
cult to do this, partly because the habit of interpreting 
these writings in an allegorical sense was very familiar, 
as we may see from the Talmud and the writings of 
Philo; partly because the Old Testament is full of 
Messianic anticipations, of unfulfilled, but glorious 
promises. Doubtlessly, the history of the Messiah, 
His rejection by the Jews, His condemnation by priests 
and council. His crucifixion by the Roman governor, 
was a vast difficulty, a perpetual stumbling-block. 
Some of the believers in Christ met the difficulty by 
denying the reality of the crucifixion altogether. But 
great as the crime Avas, it was a crime of ignorance. It 
was due to the fact that God's counsels were hidden 
from the princes of the world, who would not other- 
wise have crucified the Lord of glory. To those, how- 
ever, who rightly understood the revelation of God, it 
was clear that Christ must suffer, in order that such 
glory should be won. The condition of all progress, all 
growth, all restoration, all perfection, is suffering. It 



PAUL OF 'tarsus. 



was a cardinal tenet in the morality of Judaism, that 
the just are the expiatory victims of the wicked, that 
the regeneration of the world is to be hoped for and ob- 
tained by the self-abandonment of those whom God 
raises up for this high end. Hence, the Apostle could 
speak of himself as one who was helping, by his own 
self-sacrifice, to fill up what was not even completed by 
the death of Christ, — the perpetual expiation which 
man makes for his fellow-man — the waste which is 
demanded from the believing soul, in order to compen- 
sate for the waste which is caused by the sinful soul. 
As far as humanity is concerned, the sacrifice, the cruci- 
fixion, the shame, the loss is still going on, in order 
that humanity may be exalted and redeemed. The 
Apostle appeals to the consolations which must be 
afiforded to those who are convinced that they are 
aiding the work of human redemption, by identifying 
their efforts with the supreme effort of Christ's Passion. 
Christ, I grant (it is as though he should say), was 
crucified, but ye are crucified also. Your life-long 
struggle with the temptations and trials which beset 
you, with the passions which are crowded into your 
mortal nature, with the foes within you and the foes 
without you ; your work for your own salvation and for 
that of others, — are similar to that grief which He 
endured for you, which He suffered whom I preach to 
you as your Saviour and your Example. The shame 
of the death is done away by identifjdng it with the 
most ardent struggles after the purification of your own 
souls, and the regeneration of the world. Met by the 



HIS ARGUMENTS TO THE GREEKS. 235 

scandal of the crucifixion, — and it was an ovei-^^helm- 
ing scandal, — Paul boldly made it a matter of satis- 
faction, and insisted that it was not only the initiative 
in the redemption of man, but the type of that great 
struggle in which death and the grave are baffled at 
the very moment of their apparent victory. The diffi- 
culties which afterwards arose as to the nature of Him 
who suffered, and as to the part which men play in 
their own salvation and that of their neighbors, were 
as yet latent. 

With the heathen world there was another difficulty. 
St. Paul tells us that to the Greeks — the name is generic 

— the Gospel he preached was folly — a sheer absurdity. 
To common habit it must have seemed so. We can 
imagine such persons arguing as follows : — Here is 
a well-informed man, who has travelled much, and seen 
much of the world. He is, to be sure, a Jew, and 
therefore believes in such a conception of God as is just 
and pure, though the belief is overlaid by a host of an- 
tiquated observances and superstitions. We can accept 
the monotheism which the Jew teaches. The best and 
wisest men of our own race have held such opinions, 
and have repudiated those vulgar ideas of the Divine 
nature which are current with a mob of profligates, 
with illiterate villagers, and with the rabble of towns. 
But this is not a teacher of monotheism. He proposes 
to us a deified, or, at least, heroic redeemer of mankind 

— a new incarnation of the Deity. And who is his 
strange God ? It is a Syrian peasant, who possessed 
certain powers which were probably magical, and who 



236 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

ended his career by a violent death, inflicted by judicial 
sentence, and, as we may reasonably suppose, for hav- 
ing taken part in some local insurrection. That a wise 
and holy person should suffer death for his opinions is 
not Avithout a parallel — that such a person should have 
sprung from an ignoble origin is not without precedent ; 
but that he should have sprung from such an origin, in 
such a people, have limited his teaching to a section of 
his own race, have perished by the hands of those he 
instructed, and should now be held up before us as an 
object of reverence — as a person who, having died, has 
risen, lives, and is a God — passes the bounds of cre- 
dulity. What Festus uttered as Paul pleaded before 
Agrippa, what the Athenian Literati said, when they 
invited him to expound his doctrine on Mars' hill, must 
have been in the mind of many who heard him speak. 

With such persons the Apostle dealt by teaching 
the common interests of mankind, the universality of 
the Divine Providence, the certainty of the Divine 
judgment, and the appointment of a Person by whose 
agency that judgment should be declared ; who, having 
lived among men, and having died the death of men, 
was recalled from death in order to fulfil this inevitable 
purpose. To live is to prepare for death, to die is to 
enter into the vestibule of the Di^dne judgment-seat. 
So he reasons with Felix, and with the Athenians. No 
part of the Greek theology exercised a more powerful 
restraint on the conduct of men, than the tribunal of 
the stem, strict judges before whom the dead were 
arraigned, and by whose sentence the pious and the 



PAUL'S MANNERS. 237 

guilty were rewarded and punished. But, in the 
scheme which the Apostle proposes, and which affimis 
those elements of a primeval faith, there is coupled 
the tenet, that he who is to be judge is also advocate, 
that he who will hereafter utter the sentence is renewing 
the nature of those who will appear before his tribunal. 
To the Greek mind, initiation into sacred rites, — the 
knowledge of which was confined to those who were 
fit to receive the revelation, and who would be puri- 
fied by the knowledge, — was a familiar process. The 
Apostle appropriates the word which designates this 
purifying knowledge to the Christian faith, and the 
Gospel becomes a mystery. 

All the descriptive portraits of the Apostle affirm 
that, whatever may have been his physical appearance 
and utterance, his manner was singularly graceful and 
winning. Of the attachments which he inspired we 
have abundant proof. Of the affection which he felt 
for his converts and disciples we have similar evidence. 
If he endured enmities he consolidated friendships. 
His intense personality makes his associates or disciples 
shadowy and almost impersonal. At first, indeed, Paul 
seems to be subordinated to Barnabas, whose name 
(two occasions excepted in which active hostility is 
shown to these fellow-laborers) is always put before 
that of his great colleague. But after the quarrel be- 
tween them, when Barnabas disappears from the nar- 
rative, and Paul becomes almost the only personage in 
the history, the associates of the Apostle are his dis- 
ciples, probably his converts. Such were Silas, Luke, 
Timothy, Titus, and others. 



238 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

Kothing, it has been said, illustrates the grace of 
Paul's manner more completely than his letter to Phi- 
lemon. Very likely it is the sqIc remaining example of 
many similar epistles, written as occasion arose to those 
with whom he was united in the double bond of teacher 
and friend. The circumstance which gives occasion to 
the letter is well known. The fugitive slave of an 
opulent citizen of Colossge — as we may surmise the 
master was — has been converted by the Apostle, and 
is employed as a messenger to the Church which Paul 
had planted there. The master had also been a con- 
vert, and St. Paul writes by the slave's hand at once 
to the Colossians, and to the master, with a view to 
disarming the anger of the latter against the runaway. 
Nothing can show greater tact than this epistle. The 
writer begins by thanking Philemon for the kindness 
and generosity he had shown to the Christians in his 
neighborhood. Then he introduces the subject of his 
letter ; alludes playfully to the name which the slave 
bore — " the Profitable ; " states that he would have 
gladly kept him as an attendant on himself, but could 
not do so without consent ; and prays that he may not 
only be forgiven, but treated hereafter as a fellow- 
Christian. Then he offers to pay for any loss which 
has occurred to Philemon by the fraud or misconduct 
of his servant ; hints at the relations which have al- 
ready subsisted between Philemon and himself; assures 
himself that more than his request will be granted ; 
and expresses a hope that he may be spared to pay 
Philemon a visit. Nothing can be less intrusive, less 



TEMPER OF THE APOSTLE. 239 

importunate in its tone, than this letter, and yet noth- 
ing can more earnestly express the wishes of the 
writer, and avow more courteously his assurance that 
the favor will be granted. 

Equally marked is the sensitiveness which appears 
in the Epistles to the Corinthians. In his anxiety to 
restore unity to the distracted Church in that city, and 
to cure scandals which had infested it, the Apostle uses 
the greatest caution in administering rebuke and coun- 
sel. We learn from these epistles what were the 
leading characteristics of those primitive Christian 
communities, what were the interaal dangers to which 
they were exposed, and how great was the tact needed 
to direct and control them. And we can also leani 
from the genuine portions of the Epistle of Clement 
to the Corinthians, that the Apostle's advice had the 
effect of quelling their disorders, though they broke 
out with redoubled mischief after St. Paul's death. 
The Corinthian Christians were only too apt to imitate 
those faction fights of the Jews and Romans (for the 
Corinth of the Apostolic age was hardly a Greek city), 
which are described as having been waged before the 
tribunal of the philosophic Gallio. 

But though the Apostle was notably discreet in his 
treatment of those with whom it was important to be 
conciliatory, his temper was not absolutely impertur- 
bable. It is fortunate for the future of the Christian 
religion that his patience had its limits. He was too 
sagacious not to see that the attempt to fiston Judaism 
on his followers would simply ruin Christianity, and 



240 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

that the attempt must be met resolutely and at once. 
And as a man in whom the feeling of self-respect was 
heightened by the consciousness of his own energetic 
temperament, by the knowledge of his prodigious suc- 
cess as a missionary, and by the ever-present conviction 
of a special revelation from Christ, — to which revelar- 
tion, and to which alone, he owed his knowledge of 
the Gospel he taught, — he was thoroughly exasperated 
by the attempt of his adversaries to disparage, to even 
deny his apostolic authority. The result of this anxiety 
for the future of Christianity, and this necessity of 
self-defence, was the Epistle to the Galatians, in which 
the Apostle vehemently asserts the authority of his 
mission, gives the history of his call to the apostolate, 
and his early resolution to act independently of the 
college at Jerusalem, attacks the consistency of two 
sucli men as Peter and Barnabas, and then announces 
the necessity of separating, at once and for ever, the 
Christian Gospel from Jewish practices. He plainly 
declares the ceremonial parts of the Mosaic covenant 
to be abrogated, annulled, antiquated ; nay, that obedi- 
ence to them is inconsistent with the fellowship of 
Christ, — taking a position from which retreat was im- 
possible, affirming a principle which nothing could 
explain away or qualify. He rebukes the levity with 
which his converts had supplemented his teaching; 
assures them that his gospel needed no addition ; and 
expresses a wish that he could be with them instantly, 
and solve his doubts as to their attitude towards him 
and his gospel by speech, rather than by the slower 



PAUL'S METHOD OF REASONING. 241 

process of communicating to them by letter, and wait- 
ing for a reply, — to change his written word for word 
of mouth. A man of warm affections, Paul always 
preferred to treat men with gentleness and considera- 
tion, even when he was prescribing a strict rule of 
spiritual life ; a man of strong convictions, he could not 
suffer the essentials of his ministry — his indej^endent 
authority as a teacher, and his complete knowledge as 
a missionary — to be disparaged or trifled with. He 
affirms the former by an unwonted and emphatic 
adjuration ; he pronounces an anathema on those who 
change his gospel, — add to it, or substitute any other 
teaching for it. 

The method of the Apostle's reasoning is often 
obscure, generally abrupt, never, in the technical sense, 
logical. He expressly repudiates the use of such an 
instrument of persuasion as the formal method of dem- 
onstration. The subject did not admit it, except in so 
far as, in dealing with Jews, he appeals to the authority 
of the Old Testament Scriptures. For religion is not 
an affair of evidences, does not admit of demonstra- 
tion. It may be questioned whether faith has ever 
been aided, or doubt resolved by the logical apparatus 
of theology. It has been proved that the religious 
sense may become nearly extinct in an age to which 
dogmatism has supplied the strictest definitions, the 
most elaborate conclusions. To win a man over to 
God's will, to instruct his heart in the belief that God 
is a real Being whom man can love, and loving, will 
obey, and to nerve him for the struggle which such love 



242 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

and obedience invite him to, against the sin, the mean- 
ness, the selfishness, the arrogance, the vanity, the igno- 
rance of a mere worldly life, — is not the function 
of logic, which may j)erhaps raise a man to a passive 
acquiescence in a Power, or at best to the cold admira- 
tion of some unvarying Law. " The affections believe," 
says Paul, and reason takes the impulse as a principle 
of action. And what is true of a religion which gains 
man to God, is even more manifest in the exhortations 
by which the Apostle bids men believe in Christ. 
He appeals to loyalty, — to that mysterious sentiment, 
which, apart from the prospect of past and future bene- 
fit, binds men to the incarnation of perfect love, wis- 
dom, gentleness, purity, — the power and the wisdom 
of God. If men do and can claim this loyalty because 
they exhibit in faint and imperfect outline some of 
these divine attributes, or evoke it because they merely 
represent the cohesion of social life, how much more 
should He claim an all-absorbing devotion who was on 
earth a pattern of perfect goodness, and has given 
infallible guarantees of future perfection to His disci- 
ples. Such a loyalty, ever present, ardent, untiring, 
but glowing more brightly, working more fervently as 
his experiences accumulated, governed the Apostle's 
nature from the day when he drew near to Damascus, 
to that in which he saw the time of his departure at 
hand. This he commended to his converts, not by any 
weight of reason or wisdom, but by his pei*petual 
experience of Christ. 

Even, however, if every allowance is made for the 



EIS OBSCURITY OF STYLE. 243 

subject which the Apostle treated, and for the pregnant 
brevity of his phrases and expressions, it cannot be 
denied that the method of the Pauline epistles is singu- 
larly inconsecutive. The style abounds in parentheses, 
inserted argumentations, recollections of topics, which 
are introduced into matter foreign to them, or diverse 
from them, in the most puzzling fashion. Sometimes, 
also, so many words are omitted from a sentence that it 
requires the boldest conjecture to supply the missing 
terms. It seems as though the clause had been inserted 
between the lines of the manuscript, and that space 
failing for the whole sentence, the expression was con- 
densed into inextricable ambiguity. Thus, for example, 
in the case of that celebrated passage, " a mediator is 
not of one, but God is one," it is said that at least two- 
hundred and fifty renderings have been given of the 
eleven words in the original. The sentence bears every 
mark of having been written in. It is not essential to 
the argument. The Apostle is stating that the mission 
of Christ is the fulfilment of a promise made through 
Abraham to mankind, ages before the Mosaic covenant 
was promulgated and confirmed. The Law, on the 
other hand, was not an immediate revelation, was an 
addition to existing promises, and was added in order 
to obviate sins of disobedience or recklessness, was 
communicated by subordinate authority, was put into 
the hands of an intermediary, plenipotentiary ambassa- 
dor, or mediator. Then, to emphasize the difference 
between, the earlier promise and the later law, he 
defines such an agent as Moses was by a parenthesis. 



244 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

A mediator implies the existence of two separate par- 
ties, between whom the person delegated to such an 
office acts. But God is an original Power, — He is one 
of the parties to the covenant or promise, and His 
du'ect relations with the person to whom He makes the 
promise are of a far higher significance than the revela- 
tions which He communicates to man by man. 

Instances could be multiplied of these after-thoughts, 
parentheses, recollections, glosses on what has been 
already wi'itten down, and is being read to the Apostle 
by an amanuensis. Let us take an example. The Co- 
rinthians ask him what they are to do in the case of 
purchasing meat which has been ofiered to idols, or is 
suspected of having been offered. He commences his 
reply in the eighth chapter of the First Epistle, and in 
the course of this states his own feeling, that if any 
act of his, however innocent in itself, were to shake 
the faith of his brother, he would in conscience abstain 
perpetually from the act. This leads him to comment 
on his apostolate, and his claims to consideration. This 
suggests his right to maintenance at the hands of his 
converts, did he choose to claim it — a right which he 
vindicates at length, and by many analogies. The fact 
that he makes no claim leads him to expound the prin- 
ciples which have guided him in his public career, and 
to insist on diligence and consistency in the Christian 
life. Here he illustrates the risk of falling away by 
showing how large was the DiAdne favor to the Jews 
in the wilderness, and again parenthetically detects a 
spiritual significance in the Providence which supplied 



EIS FliESENESS AND SPONTANEITY. 245 

their wants. In the face of these benefits they fell into 
idolatry, and, as the Apostle is reminded, into other 
offences against the majesty of God. Their example is 
your warning, for your trials are not beyond your 
endurance. Then, reminded of the idolatry of the 
Israelites, and simultaneously of the food and water 
in the wilderness, he abruptly speaks of the feast which 
is held in remembrance of Christ and His betrayal. 
He justifies his statement that this rite is a communion 
of Christ, by the community which exists between 
them who partake of the sacrifice; and this brings him 
back to things sacrificed to idols, on the use of which 
he now gives a full opinion at the conclusion of the 
tenth chapter. The course of the .reasoning is trace- 
able, — it is not incoherent, for it is associated ; but no 
better illustration can be given of what Aristotle calls 
inconsecutive utterance, as contrasted with methodical 
statement, than this passage does. With very rare 
exceptions, it is always possible to. discover the con- 
nection of thought in St. Paul's dictations to his aman- 
uensis, or in the copy which the amanuensis made ; 
but the association between the connected statements, 
though real, is vague. 

If the reader of the Pauline epistles can disengage 
himself fi'om two superstitions, — one which urges him 
to discover a Divine revelation in every sentence and 
word of these writings, and another which seeks to tie 
a hearty, earnest, shrewd, religious man to some prim 
system of composition, such as might be congenial to a 
literary pedant ; the one dictated by a spirit of divina- 



246 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

tion, the other by an unnatural affectation, — he will 
find more freshness, spontaneity, and reality in the 
ej^istles of St. Paul, even in their obscurest and most 
involved passages, than in any more exact compositions. 
The writer understands what he is talking about, and 
means what he says. . If he staggers under the great- 
ness of his subject, if he is distracted by the infinity of 
the interests which he treats, if every word which rises 
to his lips suggests a host of profound and large asso- 
ciations, if his care of all the churches gives every fact 
a varied but a real significance, — the intensity of which 
is heightened by the energetic affectionateness of his 
nature, and the vivid way in which he sees the bearing 
of every thing which occurs in the course of his minis- 
try, — human speech mu.st be blamed for its poverty, 
human experience, which has developed speech, for its 
narrowness. His life w^as in his hand, his heart was on 
his Kps. The heart was often too great for the speech. 
It learnt much and suffered more. Short of those mys- 
terious hours which were passed between the garden of 
Gethsemane and the darkness on Calvary, the world's 
history has uttered nothing more tragic than the words 
of this aged missionary, — " At my first defence no one 
came to my assistance, but all deserted me." Is this to 
be always the lot of such men as Paul ? He has his 
consolation, — "The Lord stood by me and strength- 
ened me." 

Though the general style of the Pauline argument 
is obscure and involved, there are passages of astonish- 
ing beauty scattered up and down these epistles. Such, 



PAULINE EPISTLES NOT ALL SAVED. 247 

for example, are the magnificent episode on Christian 
love ; and the exposition of the resurrection. Nothing 
can be more clear and succinct than the narrative of 
Paul's early apostolate, which is contained in the Epis- 
tle to the Galatians, or his resume of the depravity into 
which gross superstitions had degraded the Roman 
people. So, again, the letters to Timothy are full of 
affectionate solicitude and fatherly counsel, as that to 
Philemon is a pattern of high breeding and tact. 

The antecedent likelihood, that many of the Pauline 
compositions are lost, is strengthened by distinct evi- 
dence. One at least, which was sent to Corinth, has 
perished. It is probable, that in his care of all the 
churches he despatched many other letters to the 
numerous cities in which he had planted his gospel, 
from Antioch in the east to the extreme west — where, 
as Clement of Rome informs us, he preached after his 
first trial. Tradition gives him as wide a missionary 
enterprise in the West as history shows him to have 
accomplished in the East and in the centre of the then 
known world. We could have wished that the vigorous 
sketch which he gives of his earlier tabors had been con- 
tinued in the last epistle which came from his hand, and 
that we had been informed in his final charge to Timothy 
of the conclusion of that noble struggle, that complete 
race, on which he congratulates himself at the consum- 
mation of his career. 



CHAPTER VII. 

^ I ^HE conversion of St. Paul is the greatest fact in 
-^ the history of the Christian Church. Other men, 
from having been persecutors, have become preachers, 
have cherished that which they previously wasted. The 
zeal of a convert is proverbial, and the zeal of the 
early Christians, certainly of the Gentile converts, was 
unwearied. Nothing can exceed the boldness with 
which the Fathers of the Apostolic age, and their suc- 
cessors during the days of persecution, defied the power 
which crushed them, but could not root them out. 
Every age has witnessed the heroism of martyrdom ; 
and Christianity counts her confessors from the days 
of the ISTeronian persecution to those of the slaughter 
in Madagascar. It is impossible to coerce the human 
will, except it be first debased ; and Christianity made 
the human will divine in the sacrifice and glorification 
of Christ. He was the Example as weU as the Re- 
deemer of humanity. By the grace of God, men 
could be made like Him who is the Captain of their 
Salvation. No sex, no age, no rank, no race, was 
excluded from this great emancipation. On the one 
side was a despotism, vast, unavoidable, all-embracing, 
iron, — a military occupation of the world, — at the 



TEMPER OF THE EARLY CHURCH. 249 

head of which was some scion of a worn-out aiistocrat- 
ical family, which in its best days was notorious — even 
among the Roman nobility — for hardness and licen- 
tiousness. Four emperors of the Claudian race occu- 
pied the triple function of commander-in-chief, chief 
judge, and high priest. Beneath this system lay a 
world of despair. There was no refuge from the vio- 
lence of government except obscurity, no opiate by 
which to forget the terror except sensual indulgence. 
On the other side was the promise of God, the new 
light of a glorious future, which faith affirmed and hope 
made near. The coming of Him who had ascended 
was daily expected. He would be seen in His glory 
before the generation in which He lived had passed 
away. And when men murmured because He delayed 
His coming, and said that His promise was slack, they 
were comforted with the assurance that He was not 
slack, but merciful ; they were told that we who are 
alive and remain shall be caught up with the dead to 
meet Him in the bright region above them and to dwell 
with Him for ever. To interpret the zeal of the early 
Christians we must measure not only their hope, but 
the contrast which experience presented to that hope, 
— the dead, hateful, cruel world of sight, the fresh, 
lovely, joyous world above. The heathen called them 
mad, but they knew that their hope was sober truth. 
In the world, they were most miserable ; in Christ, they 
are already blessed. Woe to man, when such enthu- 
siasm vanishes. The mission of humanity is over, if 
the Judge comes, and finds no faith, no trust, no confi- 
11* 



250 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

dence in the world, notHng but blank apathy, or easy 
self-indulgence. This was the temper of the early 
Church. 

Of this zeal, hope, endurance, faith, Paul was the 
most conspicuous example. He had always been 
eminent for his activity. In the days when he per- 
secuted the Chm'ch his energy was unbounded. Hav- 
ing harried the Christians of Jerusalem, he journeyed 
to strange cities, taking advantage of the general 
anarchy which the furious despotism of Caligula per- 
mitted. In those times of darkness his hope was in 
all that the Rabbis had taught, or could teach, of the 
immortahty of man's soul, of the resurrection of the 
body, of angel and spirit. In misdirected faith, in 
impetuous endurance, he travelled madly over the 
plain which leads to Damascus, under the burning 
mid-day sun, eager to vindicate the law of Moses on 
those recreant Jews. 

The narrative of St. Paul's conversion, — the vision 
in the way, the light from heaven above the brightness 
of the sun, the voice from heaven, the solemn question, 
— not the less solemn, because it used a familiar meta- 
phor, — the summons to obedience, and the acquies- 
cence in the command, the change of heart, pui-pose, 
life, though not of character, — is given three times over 
in the Acts of the Apostles. St. Paul does not in his 
own writinsfs refer to the cii'cumstances of this o^*eat 
crisis in his life, but simply states that he persecuted 
the Church, that God revealed the Son to Mm, and 
that Christ appeared to hiTn last of aU. And this 



TEE APOSTLES HOSTILE TO PAUL. 251 

omission is the more remarkable, because there are 
several occasions in the epistles, in which reference to 
the supernatural event would seem convenient or ap- 
posite — as, for example, when his claim to the apos- 
tolic office was challenged, or questioned, or impugned. 
For the Apostle was assailed from two quarters. The 
Jews never forgave him for his desertion of the cause 
in which he exhibited his earliest activity. His name, 
his person, his mission, were odious to them. They 
did not forget that this ringleader of the sect of the 
Nazarenes had once been the bitter foe of the society 
to which he had apostatized. 

They who recognized the mission of Christ, but 
clung closely to the Jewish ritual, were little less hostile 
to Paul. Shortly after the death of Christ, there arose 
a sect which went by the name of the Ebionites, which 
still existed in the days of Jerome, perhaps in those 
of Justinian. Some traced these men to a teacher 
called Ebion ; others said that the name meant nothing 
but "the poor," and that they were those Judaizing 
Christians who gave so much trouble in Antioch and 
Galatia. These men hated the Apostle, and denounced 
him as a heretic and latitudinarian. They circulated 
a wild story about his conversion. They said that he 
was a pagan, who, for love of the high priest's daughter, 
became a Jew, but that, being disappointed of his wish, 
he abjured Judaism, and wrote against circumcision, 
the Sabbath, and the Law. The story is told by 
Epiphanius. 

Among the relics of early Christian literature is 



252 PAUL OF TABS US. 

a narrative, referred to already, whicli gives certain 
imaginary conversations between St. Peter and other 
Scriptural personages on the one hand, and Simon the 
magian on the other. The authorship of the work is 
ascribed to Clement of Rome. But this is a manifest 
absurdity. The date of the composition is probably 
the jniddle of the second century. But, though the 
title of the book is a forgery, it undoubtedly depicts 
the opinions of those sectaries who existed up to the 
fourth century in the neighborhood of the Dead Sea, 
and who, recognizing the twelve apostles as the only 
source of authority, united Judaism to Christianity. At 
one time they were a powerful party, and, as they com- 
bated with Paul in his lifetime, so they succeeded, for 
a century at least, in overturning his authority in the 
Eastern churches. The Homilies of Clement represent 
Peter as arguing against, and demolishing the sophis- 
tries of Simon. Some of these are the fantastic ten- 
ets of Gnosticism. But, in many particulars, Paul is 
plainly glanced at. Thus, the authenticity of a per- 
sonal revelation is distinctly repudiated, — Peter alleg- 
ing that even an angel could not address man except 
through the intei-position of a human body ; and, when 
Simon replies that a vision is given to none but the 
good, Peter quotes examples to the contrary from the 
Old Testament. " If," says he to Simon, " you have 
been visited by him, taught by him in an hour, and 
made an apostle; utter his words, interpret his say- 
ings, love his apostles, and do not proclaim war against 
me, who have lived with him. You have withstood 



THE OBJECTIONS TO HIS CLAIMS. 253 

me, who am the solid rock and foundation of the 
Church." It is difficult to avoid concluding that St. 
Paul is referred to in these exj^ressions. 

It is not easy to detect the extent to which Judaism 
dominated in the churches of Palestine. But it 
appears certain that the measure of its influence is 
the measure of hostility to St. Paul and to his preten- 
sions as an Apostle. The extreme party denied his 
authority altogether, and even circulated fables to his 
disadvantage. Even the more generous were not 
without fear at his boldness, and suspicion as to his 
motives and acts. This is shown by the language used 
to him by those residents in Jerusalem, who persuaded 
him that he should make a show of respect for the 
Law, by associating himself with certain Nazarites, 
and presenting himself in the Temple with them. 
This concession was followed by disastrous conse- 
quences, — by the riot in the temple, and the inter- 
ference of Lysias, the imprisonment at Csesarea, the 
voyage to Rome, and the captivity there. Every one 
can see how constantly Paul strove to conciliate the 
Jews, and how constantly he was repulsed. 

Two defects were discovered in his claim to the 
ai:>ostolic office. He had been a persecutor. He did 
not satisfy the definition which the college at Jerusalem 
gave to the status of an apostle — that of one who had 
been in the company of Christ during all the course 
of his ministry, from His baptism by John till His 
final disapi^earance. This was the qualification of 
Matthias. It is probable that as long as there 



254 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

remained any alive who had seen and followed Christ, 
vacancies in the Apostolic College were filled up from 
their number, and that, even afterwards, they who had 
conversed with the apostles were treated with peculiar 
respect, as the recipients of these memorabilia which 
the apostles narrated or compiled. In course of time, 
it is true, all these witnesses would be removed by 
death. But the prospect of this cessation of ocular 
testimony to the facts of the Divine life did not disturb 
the early Church, for it always looked forward to the 
speedy reappearance of Christ upon earth. When this 
hope was delayed, many adopted Chiliasm, and be- 
lieved that the personal reign of their Saviour, to 
last for a thousand years, was close at hand. Such, for 
example, was the belief of Justin. Here, then, was the 
great difficulty in the case of Paul. Even if it were 
possible to exalt to the eminence of an apostle one 
who had persecuted the Church (and at first the 
disciples seriously distrusted him), how could they 
admit the claims of one who had probably never seen 
Christ during His course on earth, who certainly had 
never listened to His teaching or witnessed any of 
these great facts which were certified by the other 
apostles. In the first instance, these difficulties were 
overcome by Barnabas, who introduced Paul to the 
other apostles, sought him out at Tarsus, whither he 
had departed, and was for a time associated with him 
in the ministry, till the friends were estranged at 
Antioch. 

But Paul was distinctly resolved to own no man as 



BOLDNESS AND DECISION OF PAUL. 255 

his superior in the work before him. He insisted, that 
in every particular he was the equal of those who were 
acknowledged as apostles ; he asserts that he did not 
for an hour yield to any dictation. To have done so 
would have imperilled every thing, — his own authority 
as a teacher, the reality of the revelation delivered to 
him, the liberty which he assured his converts in the 
Gospel. There are some who may see in this resolute 
altitude of the Apostle, the inevitable egotism of a 
strong will and a clear purpose ; but it is more reasona- 
ble to discover in such a temper, an unshaken convic- 
tion in the reality of the mission which was intrusted 
to him, and a distinct persuasion that this mission was 
to be fulfilled in one way only, and by those specific 
means which he had been already adopting. And, to 
us — who can understand the efi*ect of this uncom- 
promising temper upon the history of Christianity — 
it is manifest that the Apostle's persistency is the 
reason why Christianity did not become a mere Jew- 
ish school, which might have had a faint existence in 
the Ana of some Talmud or Cabbala ; or would, more 
probably, have been completely lost in the general 
havoc of the great Jewish war. As it is, the teaching 
of the Pharisee of Tarsus has given method to mod- 
ern civilization, has erected religion into a social sys- 
tem, and has constantly been a standard by which the 
Christian republic has been measured and reformed. 

The Epistle to the Galatians contains the most em- 
phatic declaration of St. Paul's authority and inde- 
pendence as an apostle, though it is not the only 



256 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

protest against those wlio might impugn his right to 
the position which he had assumed and vindicated, for 
nearly every epistle of the AjDOstle contains allusions 
to the same subject. The most sceptical critic has 
never questioned the authenticity of this composition, 
or hinted that it is affected by any of those canons 
of forgery which have been so very variously affirmed 
about the sacred writings of Christendom. Hough 
and plain-speaking to excess — as might have be§n 
expected fi'om a man whose anger was roused at the 
intrusion of mischievous busy-bodies and pedants 
among his converts, and at the foolish facility with 
which the former had imposed, and the latter had ac- 
quiesced in, a vain and superfluous ritual — the letter 
is full of gentle passages and affectionate appeals. It 
is to be observed, too, that no name is associated with 
that of the Apostle in the preamble to the epistle ; that 
no salutations from individuals, or to individuals, are 
found at its conclusion. The grievance of which the 
Apostle complains is his own — though shared by his 
companions — but he could not, or would not, associate 
any individual with himself in the expostulation which 
he addressed to these vacillating disciples. He wrote 
too, we may conclude, hastily, even impetuously, im- 
mediately on receiving the vexatious news of which his 
communication treats, and he has had neither time nor 
inclination to collect and send the messages which are 
so general in his other epistles. 

In preparing the way to an exposition of the author- 
ity under which he spoke and acted, the Apostle reiter- 



HIS EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 257 

ates a statement that the Gospel which he had preached 
was complete, that it needed no addition, and that no 
alteration in it could be permitted. He couples with 
this assertion an emphatic excommunication on those 
who hold the contrary. He varies the expression in 
the fifth chapter, announcing that he who troubles 
them shall bear his judgment, whoever he be, — the 
phrase seeming to denote that the emissaries of Juda- 
ism alleged the authority of some persons in the Apos- 
tolic College, and that the Galatians were overawed by 
the pretensions of those who " had seen Christ, " or at 
least were the mouth-pieces of those who had enjoyed 
such important experiences. And then he asserts that 
his announcements which he had made to them were 
not received from men, but by the revelation of Jesus 
Christ. By this he appears to imply that he had not 
accepted the traditions of the teachings which Christ 
uttered, nor had ranged himself as the disciple of 
any apostolic master, but had interpreted the ch'cum- 
stances of Christ's life and death by the spirit of Christ 
which dwelt within him, and which sufficiently revealed 
the significance of these great and absorbing facts. It 
is unnecessary to argue that this knowledge was con- 
veyed to him in any supernatural manner. The facts 
were patent enough. St. Paul could appeal to the 
younger Agrippa as to the absolute notoriety of the 
events which attended the life and death of Christ. 
The importance of the revelation does not consist in 
the mere fact that Paul knew the events. In all likeli- 
hood, he had heard them over and over again during 

Q 



258 PAUL OF TABS US. 

the days in which he was a persecutor. "What was 
significant, was, that knowing them he interpreted 
them, and that they ceased to be a stumbling-block to 
a man who had made such advances in the knowledge 
of Judaism. 

St. Paul was resolved immediately on his conversion. 
He understood that his mission was to the Gentiles, 
and, as he tells us, he associated himself with no man 
whatsoever, not even taking a journey to Jerusalem 
in order to confer with the apostles, but withdrew into 
privacy to some part of the region which was vaguely 
called Arabia, and which was sometimes made to in- 
clude Damascus, just as Xenophon extends the district 
of Syria so as to contain the Euphrates. After a time 
he returned to Damascus, and announced himself as a 
convert and a missionary of the Nazarenes. Thence, 
as he tells us in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians, 
he escaped by being let down in a basket from the 
window of some house which overhung the wall of the 
city. 

Three years after his conversion he went to Jeru- 
salem. But, faithful to his determination not to in- 
volve himself with the Jewish Church, he saw, as he 
asseverates with an oath, only one of the Twelve, and 
James the brother of Christ. Those, indeed, were men 
of the highest eminence and consideration, whom it 
was at once seemly and prudent to acknowledge. But 
he saw no other apostle, and remained in Jerusalem 
fifteen days only, during which time he was in the 
company of Peter. These days were doubtlessly spent 



INCIDENTS IN HIS CAREER. 259 

in conversation about the mission and life of Christ ; 
and it seems certain, — though St. Paul repudiates the 
presumption that he derived any part of his authority, 
or of the exposition which he gave of the Gospel, from 
any person whatsoever, — that he must have heard 
during this fortnight many of those facts of the private 
life of Christ, which were so well known to the chief 
of the Twelve, and many of those discourses which 
Peter so clearly remembered. 

The Apostle of the Gentiles returned to his work. 
For a time, according to the Acts, he resided at Tar- 
sus; whence he set out with Barnabas on those early 
journeys or which we know little, but which, probably, 
extended over Asia Minor, and, in particular, over 
Galatia. During this time he was absolutely unknown 
by face in the Jewish churches. He was only reputed 
to be a preacher of that very Gospel which he had 
previously harassed. After a lapse of fourteen years 
from his first visit, he went again to Jerusalem with 
Barnabas, in order, it appears, to appeal against the 
importunity of those who wished to bring the Gentile 
Christians under the ceremonies of the Jewish law. 
Titus, also a Greek, accompanied him. It seems that 
the Apostle gave way in the case of Titus, as he took 
the initiative in that of Timothy, only as a means of 
conciliating prejudice, though he protests that this 
concession was not of necessity. The debate at Jeru- 
salem led to an amicable separation. The Twelve saw 
that Paul was really and generally the Apostle of the 
Gentiles; Peter, of the circumcision; and that both 



260 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

were eminent in their calling. The chiefs of the Church 
sided with him no more than he did with their local 
customs ; but the most eminent among them — James, 
Peter, and John (and St. Paul speaks somewhat dis- 
paragingly of their pretensions to hierarchical author- 
ity) — admitted the mission of Paul and Barnabas, 
leaving them to carry out their function without let or 
hindrance, and reserving the teaching of the Jewish 
race to the Twelve. They exacted only one obligation, 
— that the proselytes of Gentile origin should not forget 
the poor, ascetic, contemplative Church at Jerusalem. 
The risks of rupture were avoided, and Paul and Bar- 
nabas returned to Antioch. 

But the inveterate passion of the converted Jews, 
which urged them to reduce all men who agreed with 
them on doctrinal points to the same ceremonial and 
ritual, was not extinguished by this compromise. The 
college at Jerusalem might acknowledge the wisdom 
of conciliation, might concede to the energetic and reso- 
lute bearing of St. Paul, might find it impossible not to 
"glorify God in him," seeing how successful had been 
his mission. But, with the rank-and-file of religious 
sectaries, uniformity is every thing ; and ambitious men, 
those who "wish to glory" in the largeness of their 
following, know that they can always stimulate the 
rank-and-file to demand uniformity, — just as politi- 
cians can trade on a sham patriotism, — and that they 
can always, by watching for their opportunity, precipi- 
tate a crisis. The believing Jews at Antioch waited 
for such an opportunity. 



PAUL'S BREAK WITH PETER. 261 

Meanwhile, St. Peter went down to Antioch. The 
fact is mentioned, but not the occasion. For a time 
matters went on smoothly. St. Peter had himself, 
according to the Acts of the Apostles, preached to the 
Gentiles, attended on their conversion, baptized them, 
eaten with them, been reported to the apostles at 
Jerusalem for a breach of the ceremonial law, had 
explained matters, and had been exonerated from 
blame. Now, a further decision had been given in fa- 
vor of liberty, and Peter was not slow to acknowledge 
and act on it. But the unfortunate facility of being 
ashamed of his duty at a crisis, — which seems to have 
been a special weakness of this apostle, which led him 
to deny Christ after vehement protestations of loyalty, 
and which is implied in the legend of his martyrdom at 
Rome, — misled Peter in this emergency. Certain em- 
issaries came to Antioch from James, and apparently 
reproached Peter for having abandoned the exclusive 
rule of the Jews. He was afraid, and withdrew him- 
self from Gentile company. The other Jews, we are 
informed, played the same underhand part ; and, worst 
of all, even Barnabas, who had been chosen as an 
apostle to the Gentiles, and had labored with Paul for 
years, joined the secession. For this unworthy con- 
duct, Paul rebuked the chief apostle publicly, charged 
him with inconsistency, and reminded him of the 
grounds on which the Gospel was founded, as com- 
pared with those on which the Law rested. We do 
not know the effect of this rebuke ; but, judging from 
the character of St. Peter, we may be certain that it 



262 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

caused no real division between the two great apostles. 
If Peter was rash and timid, he was affectionate and 
ready to repent of offence committed. It is exceed- 
ingly probable, too, that the persons who had perverted 
the Galatians were some of these Antiochene Jews; 
and that, when St. Paul tells the story, the Galatians 
were not at a loss to identify the emissaries who had 
unsettled them. 

The narrative, whose leading characteristics have 
been stated and commented on, was intended to prove 
three things. St. Paul wished to show that his apos- 
tolate, both in its origin, and by the tenor of the facts 
which preceded his second journey to Jerusalem, was 
independent of the Twelve, and derived no authority 
from Jerusalem. He could not brook rival, still less 
superior, in the work which was before him, nor submit 
to any control whatsoever, on the part of any man, 
however eminent he might be. This had been his con- 
stant determination, from the first day of his Chris- 
tianity, and he was not likely to forego it after so many 
years of missionary labor, and in the case of persons 
who owed all their knowledge of the Gospel to him, till 
such time as these meddling emissaries had striven to 
misrepresent him, had repudiated his authority, and 
called in question the completeness of the Gospel 
which he preached. 

Next, although he protests against having sought it, 
or sacrificed any thing to gain it, he asserts that the 
Twelve made the concession, or arrangement, that the 
Gentiles should not be constrained to accept Jewish 



EIS INDEPENDENT MISSION. 263 

rites, and implies that a division of labor was effected, 
by which he had the guidance of the Gentile, Peter of 
the Jewish converts. This compromise seems to be 
indicated as still valid in the introduction to St. Peter's 
first epistle, which is especially addressed to the dis- 
persed Jews. Not, indeed, that St. Paul would object 
to any association with the special ministry of Peter, — 
on the contrary, he frequently addressed the Jews, — 
but the rule was a general one, and in effect most 
important, because it was a formal acknowledgment of 
Paul's mission, and of its total independence. Hence- 
forth the two churches were to be one in faith and 
mutual good- will, but different in their ritual, ceremo- 
nies, and government. The church which Peter was to 
instruct was national, that which was put under the 
guidance of Paul was oecumenical. The story that 
Peter ruled the Church of Rome for a quarter of a 
century is, of course, contradicted by the facts told in 
the Epistle to the Galatians, and is plainly a baseless, 
though ancient fable, which has been maintained and 
amplified in order to serve particular ends, and to 
justify ecclesiastical Csesarism. 

In the third place, St. Paul intends to imply that the 
circumstances reported to him as to the state of the 
Galatian churches justify a suspicion of bad faith on 
the part of the college at Jerusalem, and, in particular, 
of James. It is plain that the agents of this eminent 
person disturbed the peace of Antioch, brought about 
the vacillation of Peter, and even perverted Barnabas. 
It is difficult to avoid the conclusion, that the same 



264 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

authority had been employed to sanction the Propa- 
ganda in Galatia. What else is the meaning of those 
allusions to some great personages in " the angel from 
heaven," "those who seemed to be something," who 
"seemed to be pillars," they "who would shut you out 
of the Church that they may be the objects of your 
admiration," of him " who is to bear his own judgment 
whosoever he be ? " These expressions can hardly ap- 
ply to obscure and unauthorized preachers, who, with- 
out any personal or external recommendation, were 
traversing the Apostle's doctrine. Impressible as the 
Galatians might have been, they would hardly have 
been turned from the freedom which St. Paul's gospel 
gave them, at the hands of such a missionary, to sub- 
mit to the Jewish rite and the Jewish ceremonial, and 
this by the arguments of strangers, unless those persons 
had come armed with very full credentials. Luther 
does not denounce Tetzel, but the Poj^e whom Tetzel 
represents. St. Paul is not thinking of nobodies, when 
he is so exceedingly plain-spoken in the wish which he 
utters against those who troubled his converts. 

Nothing can be more false and more delusive than 
to imagine that the first teachers of the Christian 
religion were men whose harmony of opinion and ac- 
tion was complete, who entertained one view only of 
the Gospel, and who had neither difference, nor debate, 
nor quarrel. They were not unconscious mouth-pieces 
of a supernatural inspiration, automata of some uncon- 
trollable enthusiasm, unanimous machines, but were 
men of like passions with ourselves, men with charac- 



HIS TACT AND BROADNESS. 265 

ters, impulses, affections, fears, dislikes — were human 
in the mistakes they made, and in the truths which 
they embraced and enunciated. It is sheer superstition 
to treat them as more than men, as other than men, 
however highly we may value their labors, and rever- 
ence the spirit which generally guided their thoughts, 
their actions, and their words. If we make them un- 
real and transcendental personages, we do them a great 
injustice, and ourselves a certain mischief, because all 
fi-ee inquiry into their motives and feelings is suspected 
as a challenge of their authority, and every other form 
of commentary becomes mere verbiage shed around 
a foregone conclusion. They are not stars fixed round 
the great central Light, and differing only in glory and 
goodness from Him who is the centre of their system. 
But they have what light they possess fi'om reflection, 
and feel themselves immeasurably distant from the 
Power which illuminates them. 

Such men as St. Paul, who have seen much of the 
world, — have made human nature and human charac- 
ter their careful study, and who know how much of 
both nature and character is due to circumstances, 
education, association, habit, — are inevitably tolerant, 
invariably indifferent to mere varieties of feeling and 
peculiarities of manner. When men of St. Paul's 
intelligence are animated by a desire to do good to 
those with whom they are brought in contact, they 
use these differences discreetly, and easily accommodate 
themselves to idiosyncrasies of race and character. In 
a word, they possess tact, and a conscientious, selt- 
12 



266 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

denying, earnest, active, generous nature, whicli is also 
gifted with tact or discretion, wields among those with 
whom it is conversant an irresistible influence. And, 
on the other hand, they who live in a little world of 
their own, — be they apostles or ordinary men, — con- 
tract a narrow and exclusive temper, set great store by 
trifles, are conservative and tenacious on minor points, 
insist on hteral obedience, are passionately fond of con- 
formity, are jealous for the letter, are slow to under- 
stand the spirit. As time went on, and Paul became 
more catholic in his teaching and manner, the ascetic 
college at Jerusalem became more scrupulous, precise, 
rigorous, exacting. In the presence of a great and 
comprehensive genius, they are willing to effect a com- 
promise, will acknowledge that there is a world be- 
yond their experience. But when he is gone, the old 
exclusiveness usurps its place anew in their minds, they 
forget their concessions, they torture themselves with 
the idea that they have gone too far, and seek to re- 
tract what they have granted. When St. Paul was at 
Jerusalem, James gave him the right hand of fellowship. 
When he is gone to Antioch, the emissaries of James 
follow him in order to revoke in detail all that had been 
previously allowed. 

The spirit which influenced the apostolic society at 
Jerusalem is by no means extinct. It is possible to 
conceive the case of some missionary who has spread 
the hght of the Gospel among the heathen, and has 
won over abundant converts. These converts run well, 
Buffer many things. They may even submit to mar- 



A PHASE OF HUMAN NATUEE. 267 

tyrdom with courage and constancy, braving death and 
torture on behalf of the creed which they have era- 
braced, and in the faith or confidence which they en- 
tertain. A persecution as bitter as any to which the 
early Christians were subjected, may fall upon them, 
and they may perish numerously — man, woman, child 
— under the hand of pitiless enemies. They may be 
exposed to the most dangerous calumny which can be 
raised against one who wishes to reform or restore the 
society in which he lives, — that, namely, of unfriendli- 
ness to established institutions — of being unsocial, un- 
patriotic, traitorous. The remnant which is left after 
the hurricane may win tolerance from its persecutors — 
may even convert them. Unluckily, however, when 
the heroes of this spiritual warfare attract the attention 
of such Christian societies as have lived at ease, it is 
found that they are destitute of some form, or mode of 
government, or ritual, which is accepted among certain 
other communities. They have, it is true, faith in 
Christ, and have obeyed the law of the Gospel, striving 
unto death. They have never heard of the form, 
ritual, or mode of government, for the Scriptures are 
silent on such topics, and they have learned little be- 
yond what is written in the New Testament. But 
they are now to be informed, that unless they accept 
the system of which they now hear for the first time, 
they cannot be saved ; that faith in God and His Christ 
is nothing except they have faith in a hierarchy and a 
liturgy. It is easy to anticipate what would have been 
the attitude of St. Paul towards such intruders. lie 



268 PAUL OF TABSUS. 

has left it on record in the Epistle to the Galatians. 
He tells us his own practice when, in the Epistle to the 
Romans, he repudiates building on another's founda- 
tion. 

In quitting this topic of the vexations which St. Paul 
had to endure at the hands of the Church in Jerusalem, 
it is proper to remark that, if we can trust the genuine- 
ness of the First Epistle to the Thessalonians — and 
the weight of internal evidence is overwhelmingly in 
its favor — there was a time in which the example of 
the Jewish churches might be held up to Gentile con- 
verts. St. Paul speaks of the Thessalonians as followers 
of the churches of God which are in Judea. But it is 
not likely, after he had borne the provocation which 
was given him in Antioch and Galatia, that he could 
have used such language of those "who came fi'om 
James." 

St. Paul rests his claims to the apostolate on the 
providence of God, and on the marks of favor with 
which his mission had been supported. In these 
particulars he did not fall short of those who affected 
to be specially apostles. He uses a term familiar in the 
nomenclature of the Aristotelian logic, to denote his 
destination for the high office which he fulfilled. He 
was separated as an Apostle, defined, so to speak, to the 
duty. Christ was revealed to him, not, as has been 
suggested, to tell him the facts of the Master's life, or 
to implant in him the discourses of the great Teacher, 
or even to nan-ate to him the wonders which He 
wrought, — for it is impossible to doubt, that had this 



HIS LOYALTY TO CHRIST. 269 

been the case, frequent quotations from such a literal 
revelation would have been given in the epistles, — but 
to inform him as to the spiritual significance of Christ's 
coming, and to impart to him the Gospel which he 
should convey. Except, therefore, in the passage where 
he describes the institution of the Lord's Supper, Christ 
is not a man who lived among men and taught them, 
but a Divine being who wields the power of God, and 
by Himself associates man with his Maker. In the 
Gospels, Christ is perfect Humanity. He is deified 
Humanity in the Apocalypse. But in the Ej^istles of 
Paul, though He is intensely personal. He is a Power, 
an Illumination, a Lord of dead and living, a Redeemer, 
a Judge, a Being whom men tempt, whom men love, 
reverence, serve. In the gospels. He is the highest of 
Teachers; in the epistles. He is the Son of God and 
the Brother of man. 

The intense and unvarying loyalty which St. Paul 
felt towards Christ, the profound faith or trust which 
he had in Him, were his hope and consolation, the 
guarantee of his mission, the absorbing object of his 
life. This comfort was clouded only by one recollec- 
tion, — the fact, namely, that he had once persecuted 
those who believed in his Master. Hence, in no tone 
of hyperbole, but in sober and sad earnest, he speaks 
of himself as chief among sinners, because he had 
blasphemed Christ, persecuted His followers, insulted 
His Gospel. He can excuse himself, nay, can explain 
God's mercy to him, only on the ground that he was 
ignorant, and had none of that trust in Christ, which is 



270 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

now his safety and his comfort. Similarly, he speaks 
of himself to the Corinthians as the least of the apos- 
tles, as unfit to be called an apostle, and for the reason 
that he persecuted the Church of God. He refers to 
his previous career in his energetic letter to the Gala- 
tians, and again in the last epistle which he wrote to 
any com23any of his converts — that to the Philippians ; 
when his mind was most completely absorbed in the 
retrospect of his ministry, and when, having seen that 
his life was Christ, he reckoned that his death was 
gain. In the midst of his consolations, in the best sea- 
son of his hoipe, this remorse was always before him. 

It is quite in nature that this memory was far keener 
to the Apostle than it was to those who a few years 
before were persecuted by him. Men forget the wrong 
done to them more easily than the wi'ong they have 
done. They remember the latter in one of two fash- 
ions. They either hate energetically the object of 
the injury — rousing themselves by every motive they 
can frame to excuse the vn'ong, and continuing it ; or 
they are full of tenderness towards those whom they 
have dealt unjustly by — eagerly seeking out occasions, 
long after all other recollection of the facts has faded, 
to relieve themselves by showing kindness, by accumu- 
lating benefits on those whom they have injured. It is 
in keeping with this feeling, that Paul speaks so lov- 
ingly of those who were in Christ before him, that he 
declares he would lay down his life — nay, even be 
rejected from the Divine favor, if he could only secure 
the salvation of those by whom he would have dealt so 



HIS EARLY MEMORIES REPROACHFUL. 271 

savagely if they had embraced the Gospel in the days 
when he " breathed out threats and murder." 

What does he mean in the Epistle to the Galatians 
when he speaks of the excessive persecution and havoc 
which he inflicted on the Church of the believing 
Jews? Does it not seem as though he had tortured 
them, as he had himself been tortured, when he reckons 
up the sufferings of his apostolic life? Once in the 
history of the Israelite nation, the tribe to which Saul 
belonged had nearly been exterminated, and the sur- 
vivors were thereafter no way lacking in zeal. The 
fugitives of Rimmon, the residue of Gibeah — the 
remnant of men, women, and children, who escaped 
that terrible slaughter — were headstrong and fanat- 
ical in future. Paul had the spirit of his ancestor, 
who sought to slay the Gibeonites in his zeal for the 
children of Israel and Judah. And when he was con- 
verted, he retained not only the recollection of Ste- 
phen's death, but of the multiplied murders which he 
had ordered or encouraged, when, during the wild 
anarchy of Caligula's reign, he sought and obtained 
authority from the chief priests to bind and slay, fol- 
lowing the Nazarenes to strange cities and compelling 
them to blaspheme Christ. His resolution and strength 
of pui-pose were the traits of his youth, his manhood, 
and his age. Thus, in later days, when the real work 
of Paul was understood and acknowledged, and the 
old jealousies had become extinct, the Christian com- 
mentator interpreted the blessing of Jacob, and dis- 
covered in his prophecy the career of the greatest 



272 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

among the sons of Benjamin, — " Benjamin shall devour 
in the morning as a ravenous wolf, and in the evening 
give nurture." 

When St. Paul wi'ote his Epistle to the Romans, his 
missionary labors had extended in a circle, as he roughly 
names it, from Jerusalem to the eastern coast of the 
Adriatic, ■ — this vast region having been untrodden by 
any Christian foot except his own, and those of his 
disciples. As yet, he had not visited Rome, nor did 
he visit it till he came thither as a prisoner. He re- 
mained at Rome for two years ; the statement made at 
the conclusion of the Acts of the Apostles implying 
that his residence in the metropolis ceased at that time. 
The narrative of his labors after this period is wholly 
lost to us. He had intended a journey to Spain, and 
had resolved to take Rome on his way. It is reason- 
able to conclude that he carried out his purpose, and 
that the origins of churches in the far west of the 
ancient world were the preaching of this unwearied , 
Apostle. There are legends of his having visited 
Gaul and Britain. That his writings were known in 
these western churches is plain ii'om Irenaeus ; that his 
authority as a teacher of the Gospel was recognized in 
those regions, even before it was accepted in the east- 
ern world, is plain from the quotations which the early 
Fathers of the west make from his writings, — from 
the store which they set by his robust and practical 
doctrine. 

In point of fact, St. Paul possessed, together with 
the spuit of a missionary, much of the shrewdness of a 



PAUL'S POLITICAL SHBEWBNESS. 273 

statesman. But he was no doctrinaire. He was the 
founder of churches, not the framer of constitutions. 
He had none of that pedantry which insists on a uni- 
form method of ecclesiastical government, and disdains 
any diplomatic intercourse between diverse forms of 
church administration. He knew that religious, just 
like civil, communities can, if they are left to them- 
selves, discover and adapt to their own ends the machin- 
ery of their own organization. Hence, even in the 
pastoral epistles, — where we should naturally expect 
some distinct theory of church government, — his ad- 
vice bears rather on the qualifications of those whom 
the churches should select as their officers, than on the 
administration or government of the Church. Deacons 
there must be, — for the essence of the Christian life in 
the early ages of the Church was mutual succor. Elders 
there might be, — for the habits of Judaism naturally 
influenced the Christian converts. Or there might be 
some special overseer, or overseers, who made them- 
selves responsible for the good government of the 
Saints. Or there mi'oht be no officers whatsoever, 
beyond some temporary chairman appointed to keep 
order, — as was the characteristic of the Corinthian 
church, and, apparently, that of Justin's place of wor- 
ship at Nablous. But no one can cite the Apostle as 
an authority on the creation of a caste of ecclesiastics, 
— as the founder, or even the adviser of a hierarchy. 

The activity of the Apostle's mind, the energy of his 
spiritual nature, continued to the last days of his life ; 
and, unfortunately, so did the bitterness of his enemies. 
12* K 



274 PAUL OF TABS US. 

It is manifest that the Second Epistle to Timothy was 
written just before his second trial and condemnation ; 
when, in the general desertion of his friends, he was 
expecting death ; and when he almost dreaded that his 
beloved disciple would join the timid or the malcon- 
tent. But the words of the epistle are as full of reli- 
gious confidence as any which he ever penned or 
dictated before, when his career was in mid-course. 
He is still the preacher, the apostle, the teacher of the 
Gentiles. There are sayings which may be trusted, 
even in the darkness of unbelief and worldliness ; and 
these sayings are to be continued through a long and 
unbroken succession of teachers. There is no sign in 
the last words of the Apostle, that old age, imprison- 
ment, ingratitude, sickness, had worked any weakness 
in his will, or diminished, in any single particular, that 
which had been the absorbing interest of his life. He 
has enemies as well as false friends, — Phygellus and 
Hermogenes, Hymenseus and Philetus, Alexander the 
coppersmith. And he has friends — Luke and Onesiph- 
orus — besides those who were faithful to him at Rome, 
and in whom antiquaries have discovered a Roman 
bishop, a Roman senator, and a British princess. He has 
his word for his enemies, his expressions of loving regard 
for his friends. With such men as Paul, there is no 
cessation in the fervency with which they carry out the 
purpose of their life. They relinquish their hold on 
the work before them, only when they die. The vet- 
eran falls on the field in full panoply. The helmsman is 
torn from the rudder while his grasp is as vigorous as 
ever. 



HIS LABORS AND TROUBLES. 275 

It is a matter for profound regret, that the world has 
had to undergo the irreparable loss of the letters which 
the Apostle wrote during the last years of his life, and 
of the narrative in which it is probable . that Luke 
recounted the events of his western journeys, of his 
second captivity, and of his death. The impression is 
irresistible that the Acts of the Apostles is a series of 
mutilated fragments, — the remains of a far larger his- 
tory, which conclude abruptly, but which originally 
contained a complete narrative of Paul's life. Were 
this narrative preserved, we should learn what was the 
activity of those five or six years which elapsed be- 
tween the residence in the hired house at Rome and 
the chain of which Onesiphorus was not, though so 
many others were, ashamed. We might, perhaps, hear 
also how it was that all in Asia, who had owed so 
much to the Apostle, were turned away fi-om him ; 
and what were the machinations by which Phygellus 
and Hermogenes were constituted the leaders of this 
schism. That it was the old rancor admits of little 
doubt. These intruders must have brought forward 
the old charges, — that he had advised a compromise 
with idolatry, that he had taught everywhere against 
the people, and the Law, and the Temple. The malice 
of polemical rancor knows no bounds, is unsleeping, 
implacable, insatiable. Paul had offended the conserv- 
atism of the Jewish Chri-stians, and their vengeance 
kept no truce. 

More than once in his writings, Paul has described 
the labors and troubles of his apostolate, and always 



276 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

with exceeding clearness and concentration. For 
example, he recounts the characteristic traits of his 
ministry in a passage of great beauty and eloquence, 
when writing his last existing epistle to the Corinth- 
ians. He begins by avowing his anxiety to avoid 
offence. We know that he accommodated himself to 
all, Jew or Gentile, when no real question of con- 
science was involved; that he discouraged sectarian 
narrowness, and dissuaded his followers from those 
theological cavils which he rightly named doubtful dis- 
putings. This lenity of opinion was of course mis- 
represented, and Paul was charged with the vice of a 
perverted casuistry, — of having advised to do evil 
that good might come of it. But the motive which he 
had in practising this wise complaisance, was that of 
preserving the office of the evangelist from ridicule, 
of disarming dishke to the strange doctrine which he 
preached, — that, namely, of salvation by reason of the 
resurrection of a crucified prophet, — by careful and 
studied courtesy. He knew very well that earnestness 
and conviction seldom fail to win men over, if they are 
coupled with a genial consideration for the feelings of 
others ; with the charity which suffers long and is gentle ; 
with the love which he had previously described in so 
exalted and so impassioned a strain. 

As he defers so much to the habits and feelings of 
men, so he is unsparing of himself, as becomes the 
minister of God. The most obvious and recurrent of 
his experiences are those pains and penalties which he 
undergoes in order to commend the Gospel which 



EIS PERSEVERANCE AND ENDURANCE. 277 

he preaches, — the endurance, the heavy cares, the 
straits, the hair-breadth escapes, the personal violence, 
the imprisonments, the restlessness, toil, sleeplessness, 
privations which he has to bear on behalf of his con- 
victions. But there are also exacted from him a 
blameless life, a copious knowledge, extreme patience, 
gentleness, enthusiasm, unsuspected and disinterested 
devotion, truthfulness of spirit, the power which God 
gives the pious, a scrupulous and perpetual fau-ness, the 
armor of righteousness, as he calls it, on either side. 
And all this is to be maintained against discredit and 
calumny, or, perhaps harder still, amidst good repute 
and fair report. Nor, is it to be wondered at, that this 
apostoUc character is in appearance made up of contra^ 
dictions, is interpreted variously. Paul himself under- 
stood it to be so, and states the different picture which 
it presents to those who can understand it, .and those 
who look on it as Festus did. 

A life of this kind seems a daily death, while it gains 
perpetual vitality : one of ceaseless grief, and yet of 
constant consolation ; of deep poverty, but copious in 
its power of enriching others ; as utterly destitute, and 
yet grasping at and containing a wealth w^hich tran- 
scends all worldly possessions. For, in fact, if tried by 
any human standard, these endless toils, and ceaseless 
dangers would warrant men in those contemptuous 
jibes which were commonly cast on the early Chris- 
tians. But they balanced against misery and contempt 
that certainty with which their enthusiasm supplied 
them, of an assured victory, an everlasting triumph 



278 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

over 4heir enemies, and the enemies of their Master. 
The glory to come is infinitely greater than the present 
distress ; the toil of the race, the abstinence and hard- 
ship which constitute the training for this supreme 
struggle, is as nothing when compared with, the j^iize 
which the righteous Judge is certain to bestow. So 
enraptured were these men by the prospect, that they 
scorned the world and its ti'easures ; so assured were 
they of the future, that they took no care for the pres- 
ent. They were even so entranced with the blessed- 
ness of the time to come, of the day which they 
believed to be at hand, that they did not care to pray 
for vengeance on their foes. They do not seem to 
have thought of that alienable privilege of wretched- 
ness, — the invocation of the wi*ath of God on the per- 
secutor and wrong-doer. The Gospel is more concerned 
with the unspeakable comfort and consolation of trust 
in God, and in his Christ, than with the misery of those 
who forget the one and repudiate the other; is more 
conversant with mercy than with judgment. 

The hfe of Paul was one of enthusiasm, but of en- 
thusiasm coupled with a sober judgment, and lofty 
morality. "With him faith was the guide of action, 
action was the manifestation of faith. To such a 
nature nothing is impossible. It can, of a truth, turn 
the world upside-down — reconstruct it. There is no 
state of society, no general habit of thought which can 
come in contact with it, and yet remain unaffected by 
its power. Give it power of speech ; and let human 
nature be ever so cold or sluggish, it will stir it up to 



POWER OF EISITHUSIASM. 279 

warmth and energy. It is an error to imagine that 
mankind is less impressible in our own age than it has 
been in bygone times — to believe that enthusiasm is 
a mere historical force — to think that it is impracti- 
cable, in these later days, and, in the greatness of mod- 
ern society, to move nations by a vast and wide-spread 
symj^athy. The hour for such an upheaval is always 
at hand : it is only the man that is wanting. There was 
never an age in which men's hearts so much failed 
them for fear, as that in which Paul began his mission- 
ary labors ; no state of society which was less likely to 
be roused to rehgious zeal, less apt to fervently accept 
a spiritual creed. A period of great social suffering is 
no way favorable to a religious impulse, but is more 
likely to advise that license of despaii' which gives the 
gloomy counsel, " Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow 
we die." At that mournful epoch, one man laid deeply 
the foundations of a new faith, certainly through half, 
and probably through the greatest part of the A^ast 
Roman empire. To repeat the same events, it is only 
necessary that the same characters should reappear — 
with the same purpose, the same zeal, the same per- 
severance, the same judgment, the same tenderness 
and courage. But a great missionary is, perhaps, even 
rarer than a great general, for his genius is higher, his 
task more difficult. 

There always will be those who seek to conquer or 
enlist the sympathies of men. If they whose culture is 
high, and whose motives are pure, disclaim all enthusi- 
asm, and, in their attempts to assist the progress of 



280 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

mankind, shun warmth, fervor, sympathy as irrational 
and deceptive impulses, and substitute for the awak- 
ening of man's moral sense the hard logic of a bare 
moral system, they will never wield the dehverer's rod, 
will never be able to rescue a nation from the bondage 
of a merely material life, and renew the image of God 
in the soul of man. The rehgious sense is no inven- 
tion of human policy, though it may be made its tool. 
It is the necessary outcome of two facts. Man is, col- 
lectively, far ii'om having reached the \irtue which 
some have arrived at — still farther removed fi'om that 
which all might achieve. The only means by which 
the growth of this perfection can be assisted, is the 
disinterested self-denial of those who set to the work of 
saving and serving their fellows. But the willingness 
to serve man in this manner comes from the conviction 
that such beneficence is the work of God, and the will 
of God. 

It is a mournful sight — a sad presage, when the 
natural leader of men refuses his office, and flies to 
that Epicurean ease which, in the early ages of Chris- 
tianity, in the flourishing times of Judaism, in the 
best days of practical Stoicism, and even during the 
last struggles of a reformed Paganism, was abhorred 
as the worst treason against human duties and human 
hopes. But it is a more mournful spectacle, a sadder 
presage, when they who can guide and reform a world 
by speech and action, bow down to and worship suc- 
cessful force. 

Such a degradation of genius and power is the last 



HIS IDEA OF CHRIST'S MISSION. 281 

consequence of neglecting these public duties which 
men owe to men, and in the disinterested satisfaction 
of which the great Apostle not only saw that he was 
a follower of Christ, but avowed that he was filling 
up that which is left of Christ's sufferings. They who 
will not lead when they can, must in the end honor 
those who usurp their ofiice, will extol the charlatan, 
will walk contentedly in the triumphal procession of 
those who win the foremost place by chicanery, fraud, 
or A'iolence, and will even shout a pgean over the 
humiliation of mankind. It may be that they will, 
like the four hundred who stood before Ahab, promise 
their hero victory, and assure him that God is on his 
side, while no Micaiah is left to foretell the inevitable 
doom of license and injustice. Humanity is never so 
degraded as when its highest powers are worshipping- 
its lowest forces, when genius utters an encomium on 
wickedness in high places. 

To the early Christians, and notably to the apostle 
Paul, power used for merely selfish and sensual ends 
was Antichrist. The mission of Christ, according to 
these votaries, was the recovery of the human race, by 
the agency of moral forces, disinterested labor, fervid 
self-sacrifice. They believed that Christ deliberately 
relinquished power which made Him higher than all 
created beings, in order to restore mankind to the 
image of God, and that during His life on earth He 
could have returned to that power had he chosen to 
leave the regeneration of man imperfect, since it was 
possible to effect that regeneration in no other way but 



282 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

by self-abnegation. They had not yet attempted to 
define the process by which this enormous boon was 
conferred on mankind through the life and death of 
Christ, but they were assured that the boon had been 
given, and that it was given only by reason of that 
voluntary sacrifice. 

The spirit of Antichrist is precisely the reverse. It 
uses power for selfish ends, and it must degrade man- 
kind in proportion to its success. It was the policy 
of the Greek tyrant, says Aristotle, to keep his people 
impoverished, mean-spirited, suspicious of one another, 
and this has been the policy of every oppressor ever 
since. All virtue, courage, truth, are his enemies; all 
baseness, meanness, falsehood are his allies. And 
just as they who work according to the pattern of 
Christ's life are the perpetual representatives of His 
mission, so they who follow the sordid ends of a cold 
selfishness are incarnations of Antichrist, while they 
who extol such a theory of human life and action 
are the preachers and apostles of this devihsh revela- 
tion. In the days of Paul, and to the author of the 
Apocalypse, Antichrist was incarnate in the cruel 
and frivolous sensuality of Nero. The same power 
has been recognized in every personage who has con- 
strained mankind to assert that he is the agent by 
which the mystery of iniquity works ; for human 
nature has produced her monsters and portents, and 
has been amazed or distressed at their doings.. 

The ancient world busied and tortured itself with 
the origin of evil up to the time when the question was 



MORAL PBOORESS BY SUFFERING. 283 

finally settled by the dogma of original sin, by which 
is meant the transmitted \dce with which an act of 
disobedience infected all the reputed descendants of 
a reputed ancestor. Between the Gnostic who made 
evil a god, and the Pelagian who asserted that it was 
subjective and acquired, a host of thinkers occupied 
themselves with this mysterious and inexplicable fact, 
some tending to dualism, some to that Nihilism which 
makes all acts, in so far as they bear on the agent only, 
indifferent in their effects; few recognizing the truth, 
that the victory of man's moral nature lies in the ful- 
ness with which man refers all the facts of his own 
being, and all the principles of his own action, to 
the behests of that Divine Law whose stringency and 
completeness are demonstrated by overwhelming ex- 
perience. 

Infinitely more startling, however, than the question 
of the origin and purpose of evil, is the truth referred 
to above, — that the moral progress of mankind can 
be effected only by the suffering of man. The hopes 
of humanity do not lie in the fulness with which 
science discovers and employs the forces of nature. 
On the contrary, there is no danger which is more 
imminent than the appropriation of these powers by 
the coarsest despotism which can enslave and corrupt 
its subjects. It does not consist in what is called 
culture, because art and poetry are easily made the 
slaves of that wealth which is willing to have its 
existence certified, and its power acknowledged by the 
homage of cultivated parasites. It is not learning 



284 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

which can save man; for, at the best, learning only- 
influences a few, and is very apt, in those who possess 
it, to degenerate into self-sufficiency and ease. Least 
of all, do the hopes of man lie in the aggregation of 
wealth ; for experience tells us that wealth is not only 
apt to be arrogant and domineering, but that it tends 
to the formation of a coarse and harsh oligarchy, which 
is degTaded by low tastes, and is prone to ferocious 
fears, and that it is perhaps better to discourage the 
growth of opulence than to admire and welcome it. 
Nor, finally, do the hopes of humanity reside in the 
adoption of any form of polity. It may be that one 
form of administration is better than another, because 
it offers least resistance to the influence which ought 
to leaven society, gives a freer course to those forces 
which can chasten and exalt mankind. Despotism 
degrades us, but it does not follow that liberty pmifies 
us. The atmosphere is cleared of its accumulated 
poisons by some furious storm, which does in the end 
bring health to the many, but bestows its benefits 
amidst the waste and ruin of those whom it smites. 
And so the moral purification of society is effected by 
the suffering of those whom the cleansing storm catches 
in its course ; the victory of the most righteous cause 
demands the sufferinoj and death of some amonoj those 
who enter into the battle. When the stronghold of 
truth and virtue is to be built, the foundations are 
laid in the first-born, and the youngest perishes before 
the walls are finished. Everywhere we have to witness 
the reign of the same mysterious law. There is no 



THE WORLD'S DEBT TO THE JEW. 285 

joy which is not bought Tvith sorrow, no happiness 
which is not secured by pain. The Syrian is before, 
and the Philistine is behind, and men must perish in 
arresting the march of each, before it is possible that 
the day should come in which His government and 
His peace shall increase, and have no end. 

It has been observed that the Jewish race has 
furnished splendid examples of dominant energy over 
almost every subject upon which human power has 
been able to exercise itself, — in other words, that 
it has exhibited abundant and marvellous examples 
of concentration and force. Perhaps the vigor which 
it really possesses has been exaggerated. But, it is 
certain that the world is indebted to the Jew for two 
great principles. Israel has taught the unity of God, 
and, therewith, has affinned the reality of religion, and 
the obligation of man to society. Other races have 
inculcated the necessity of loyalty to a fonn of govern- 
ment. The Athenian and the Roman did so. But 
loyalty to a government inevitably degenerates into 
fetich worship, if it is made to constitute political 
virtue. The Jew was saved from this risk by the fact 
that his loyalty was not wasted on an institution, but 
concentrated on his race. His loyalty, too, was not 
aggressive but defensive. Only once in the long 
annals of this people was Judaism a military power. 
This transient splendor is even now remembered in 
the East, — where historical memory is ordinarily only 
of yesterday. 

But the Jew has suffered a perennial martyrdom for 



286 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

Ms monotheism, while he has been leavening civiliza- 
tion with his belief. For the sake of this tenet, he has 
been an alien among nations, has been persecuted, 
scorned, trampled on. But he has not been crushed. 
His tenacious vitality is a standing proof that it is 
impossible to annihilate a germ of true life. He has 
given to mankind a great doctrine. His race supplied 
humanity with one — and that, a perfect Teacher, a 
perfect Example, the chief Saviour of mankind, the 
Master of all them who attempt the same office. His 
race gave the world the great exemplar of the mission- 
ary — the wise, loving, fervent, resolute man of Tarsus, 
the Apostle of the world. Pity that the veil is still on 
their hearts, as it was when Paul wrote and predicted 
that it should be taken away. That it has not been 
removed, is the fault of those who have never acknowl- 
edged what mankind owes to the testimony of Israel, 
and, therefore, have never echoed that desire of the 
heart and prayer which he who suffered so much for his 
own nation constantly entertained and uttered, when 
he thought upon the deeds God had done for Israel, 
and the service which Israel has done for humanity and 
Christendom. 



CHAPTER YIII. 

" 'TnO us," says St. Paul, " whatever may be believed 
-*- to exist elsewhere and by others, there is one 
God, the Father, the source of all existence, the object 
of our being ; and there is one Lord Jesus Christ, by 
whose agency all things exist, and by whom we are 
what we are." Throughout his epistles this contrast is 
perpetually stated. God is our Father, Christ is our 
Lord. The Lordship which Christ exercises is fre- 
quently designated. The disciples of Christ, tbe recip- 
ients of His Gospel, are His servants or (the word bore 
a far more gentle meaning to the ancient world) His 
slaves. He has purchased them, and they are His ; He 
has renewed or regenerated them, and they are there- 
upon a new creation. He is their future Judge, for He 
is to come from heaven again in order to execute His 
last office in the great scheme of redemption. He is 
to gather His own together, in order that they may 
receive those indescribable joys which will reward 
their patience. And, meanwhile. He is related to them 
in the closest and most personal manner. Every phrase 
which can denote the nearest and most indissoluble 
connection of which we can have experience, is adapted 
to indicate the relation of Christ to His people. The 



288 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

favorite analogy whicli St. Paul uses, is that of life and 
intelligence in union with the corporeity of man. 
Christ is to His Church what the life, soul, intellect, 
spirit, are to the human organism. 

Except during the instant ecstasy on the road to 
Damascus, it does not appear that Paul ever claims to 
have seen Christ. He had not sat at His feet, and he 
had not heard that voice to which even the soldiers 
who were sent to take Him were constrained to Hsten, 
and listen wonderingly, when they said on their return 
after a fruitless errand that " never man spake like this 
Man." The Twelve had enjoyed the benefit of His in- 
struction for a lengthened period. He had expounded 
to them the depths of the Divine Law, and had 
revealed to them the mysteries of the kingdom of 
heaven. He and His had lived together, as a Httle 
community, in terms of the closest intimacy, with a 
common purse, sharing plain lodging and humble fare. 
Christ had taught the Twelve continuously. The 
recorded sajdngs of the wise Master do not represent 
in quantity more than one day's discourses of those 
three momentous years, are but the scantiest fi-agment 
of the childhood, youth, manhood, of the great Naza- 
rene. The author of the fourth gospel, with a pardon- 
able exaggeration, says that the doings of Jesus could 
fill all the books that the world might contain. We 
possess but a slender portion of those parables by which 
He illustrated His teaching, of those discourses in which 
He expounded the new commandment; of that grave 
irony with which He exposed the pretensions of self- 



CHRIST NO ABSTRACTION TO PAUL. 289 

seeking teachers; of those indignant reproaches with 
which He drove hypocritical Pharisee, time-serving 
Herodian, well-born or wealthy Sadducee, to insatiable 
wrath. These things, forsooth, were riot done in a cor- 
ner. The light was set on a hill. They came to Paul, 
as they come to us, from the narrative of eye-witnesses, 
from the memory of listeners. He had heard of them, 
no doubt, to a far larger extent than later generations 
have, when he was in Damascus, in Arabia, but most 
fully during the fifteen days of his visit to Peter. It 
may be that a summary of what he heard and told his 
own disciples is, as antiquity believed, contained in the 
gospel of Luke. It is not a little remarkable, however, 
that he does not allude in his epistles to the discourses, 
miracles, commandments of Christ, but only to the su- 
preme facts of his life and death. Whatever he may have 
known of those events which are narrated in the gos- 
pels, he does not make them the basis of his teaching. 

It would be, however, a total misconception to be- 
lieve that, in Paul's eyes, Christ, the Son of David, the 
Prophet of Gahlee, the rejected of His people, the 
Saviour of mankind was, in any sense whatever, an 
abstraction. On the contrary. He is always a vivid, 
manifest, real personality — the very intensity of indi- 
vidual being. Many of the expressions used of Christ 
were, of course, familiar to Jewish ears as formularies 
in Rabbinical theology. Such were "the Word of 
God," " the Son of God," " the power and the wisdom 
of God." The personification of those exalted quali- 
ties was natural enough to the mind of antiquity. But 
13 s 



290 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

the Christ of Paul was no incarnation of a Divine attri- 
bute ; nor, conversely, was it the apotheosis of a Jewish 
Augustus, in whom might be supposed to reside the 
loftiest manifestations which the world had ever seen 
of moral goodness and intellectual power. Paul always 
preached Christ crucified. It was not easy to treat a 
crucified person as a glorified, deified being, merely 
fi'om the fact that he was a teacher of the highest 
righteousness, and had been slain by those whom he 
came to instruct and benefit. That event is and has 
been too common. If men worshipped all the teachers 
whom they have sacrificed to their jealousy, their 
suspicion, their weariness, the gods of the human 
race would be as numerous as those of the Egyptian 
Olympus. 

Towards the Christ whom he preached Paul enter- 
tained the most ardent affection. The love of Christ 
for man is' reciprocated intensely by the love of this 
man towards Christ. It is the one great and abiding 
consolation in all the labors of his energetic life. He 
was not without other joys. Sorely tried and harassed 
as he was, by secret and open enemies,-^ by his craving 
after sympathy, by his enforced distrust of men, by his 
unsatisfied claim for fidelity, — he gained, as such ardent 
natures do, many devoted friends. He had warm at- 
tachments, and no man, however enthusiastic, disin- 
terested, persevering, wise, he may be, can conciliate 
men's affections, unless he be genial and affectionate 
himself But there was one friend who was closer than 
any other could be, who never failed him, who watched 



PAUrS AFFECTION FOR CHRIST. 291 

and strengthened him in his labors. And hence he can 
boldly ask, after enumerating every influence which 
can hinder human weakness from the consciousness of 
the Divine presence — whether trouble, penury, perse- 
cution, hunger, want, danger, or the prospect of death 
— can separate him from the love of Christ, can con- 
fidently, nay, triumphantly, assert that in the face of 
all these hindrances, he is overwhelmingly victorious by 
the love of Him, and that no created force or power 
can seclude him from this perpetual warranty of his 
hopes. The other apostles speak almost faintly of the 
personality of Christ when they are compared with 
the last of the chosen, the Benjamin of the new Israel 
Hence Paul is the permanent teacher of that school of 
Christians, which has dwelt with such tenderness on 
the humanity of Christ, which worships Him as God 
because it loves Him as man, which delights itself in 
any association which it can frame in order to designate 
the inclusion of every affection of which the human 
heart is capable in the love of Jesus. Paul is the apos- 
tle of the Quietists, of the Passionists, of those who 
would seclude themselves from every part of the busi- 
ness of life, in order that they may occupy their hearts 
with the absorbing contemplation of that glorified, but 
veritable humanity. So comprehensive was the nature 
of Paul's faith, that he — the most active and cool 
mind which Christianity has ever enlisted in its ser- 
vice — is, fi'om this tenderest part of his character, the 
perpetual example of those women, and those womanly 
hearted men, who have suffered themselves to dwell 



292 



PAUL OF TARSUS. 



with such loyal intensity on the merits of their Lord, 
who have clung to him (the simile is Paul's own) with 
much the same trusting attachment that a pure-hearted 
and earnest wife does to the husband of her love, and 
pride, and happiness. With such natures faith super- 
sedes a creed, for there is no power by which the emo- 
tions of the heart — its trust, which is the faith of the 
New Testament — can be translated into a' set, dog- 
matic avowal, which is too frequently the faith or the 
creed of later Christianity. 

And yet ^t. Paul has also become the Apostle of 
dogmatic Christianity throughout ecclesiastical history. 
It is from his writings, almost exclusively, that contro- 
versialists and polemics have forged their weapons. A 
text or two in his epistles has been made the basis of 
some definition or article of faith which has agitated or 
divided Christianity from time to time. The Gnostics 
acknowledged no authority except his catholic epistles, 
with the Gospel which he was supposed to have dictated 
or re\dsed ; while the earhest Christian Fathers, who 
contended with these sectaries, drew their replies from 
these very writings. When men entered into contro- 
versy about the nature of Christ, both Arian and Atha- 
nasian appealed to the Pauline epistles in support of 
their rival theories. The grim logomachies of Sabellius 
and Eutyches and N'estorius were defended and im- 
pugned from the same authority. Again, the world of 
Christendom was threatened with disruption in the 
days of Pelagius ; and the irrepressible question as to 
the harmony of man's free will, mth the divine scheme 



MISCONSTRUED AS A DOGMATIST. 293 

of redemption, was made a forbidden topic for many 
a century by reason of the energy of Augustine, and 
by A^rtue of a quotation or two from St. Paul's writ- 
ings. Slowly, it is true, and indirectly, the Christian 
world slid back into a theory akin to that of Pelagius ; 
and Luther, who well knew that the best way to depose 
the Pope was to prove him heretical, insisted on the 
doctrine that man is justified.by faith, — understanding 
by faith the acknowledgment of certain abstract propo- 
sitions on the nature of good, of Christ, and of man. 

The Pauline epistles were ransacked, and his words 
subjected to an elaborate exegesis, in order to prove 
that the Divine economy of Christianity commanded 
the universal establishment of an episcopal form of 
church government. Nay, some of the more eager and 
imaginative of these controversialists have discovered 
the authority for a liturgy, and that ritualism which 
deals in costume, in the parchments and cloak which 
w^ere left at Troas. No words ever written have been 
studied more carefully and more persistently than those 
of St. Paul, none have been quoted more confidently 
on behalf of foregone and repugnant conclusions. And 
yet there is no writer in the latter part of the New 
Testament more fi-ee from formal definitions than St. 
Paul is, none the articles of whose creed are plainer 
and fewer. With how strange an irony is he — who 
discouraged the Roman converts, in admitting men to 
church membership, from entering on doubtful disputa- 
tions — made the chief authority for the attack and 
defence of theologjical subtleties. 



294 PAUL OF TABSUS. 

The fact is, no large-hearted man is ever intolerant 
of opinion. He may be persuaded that unless he com- 
prehends and affirms his creed as emphatically as he 
holds his faith, he is in peril. But, in dealing with 
others, he is certain to be considerate. There are times 
in which creeds lose much of their hold on men's 
minds ; but faith, real trust in God, manifested by 
patience, and demonstrated by earnest and self-denying 
love to man, is stronger than at other periods of eccle- 
siastical history, when controversy has been sharp and 
definitions have been more exact. The gospel which 
Paul preached is singularly free from anathemas, even 
when the preacher is strongly provoked. He does not 
fly to that armory of polemical strife, whence some 
men have scattered imprecations on every thought and 
action which seems likely to challenge authority, or 
threaten usurpation. He would rather win than terrify. 
Even when he is constrained to insist on curing a grave 
scandal by sharp discipline, he is careful to excuse the 
act on the plea of its absolute necessity, and to limit 
its stringency as narrowly as possible. He knew that 
the best way to obviate quarrels was to recognize difler- 
ences. He was well aware that men may work for a 
common purpose, even though their several methods 
of procedure may be so various as to seem incongruous, 
and that, provided the means be just and honorable, 
identity of end is a sufficient bond of unity. Experi- 
ence proves that the higher is the object which men 
propose to themselves, the easier is it for them to invite 
the co-operation of different forces. The wisdom of 



FOUR GREAT FACTS OF HIS OOSPEL. 295 

the statesman consists in effecting a harmony of inter- 
ests, that of a great religious reformer in enlisting all 
action on behalf of one grand purpose. Both wreck 
their reputation when they ally themselves to party 
cries, and narrow rules. 

No writer in the New Testament, however, has 
written so much as St. Paul ; and none has written 
nearly so much about the nature of Christ. It occurred 
to him — in pursuance of his charge over the churches 
which he had planted — to communicate by letter to 
his disciples or followers, on topics which, though they 
seemed temporary or incidental, have a perpetual inter- 
est because they perpetually recur. In these commu- 
nications he had to deal broadly with the Christian 
character and the Christian system, as became, to use 
an analogy, the great statesman of the infant Church. 
Had he been a personage of ordinary temper and char- 
acter, he would have had a policy, as partisan^ always 
have. But a great statesman has no policy ; he accepts 
a few leading principles ; his wisdom being to show 
how these principles apply to the various occasions of 
human life. And, similarly, the leading rules of St. 
Paul's gospel were a few inductions, the application of 
which is universal. But the acuteness and wisdom of 
the teacher are found in the aptitude with which he 
points out the universal character of the position which 
he affirms. In St. Paul's teaching, this is the redemp- 
tion of man by the sacrifice of Christ. But the four 
facts contained in this formula are of enormous extent, 
and are exhibited under a multitude of phases, — re- 



296 PAUL OF TABS US. 

demption, the nature of man, sacrifice, the nature of 
Christ. Can any conceptions be more vast? can any 
interest be more absorbing? And need we wonder 
that, in explaining these conceptions, distinct as they 
are from each other, it is impossible to gather any clear 
notion of the mechanism by which the harmony be- 
tween these facts and operations is effected, except by 
estimating them from every point of view which can 
possibly come within our ken ? The Pauline interpre- 
tation is multiform ; but, under no circumstances is it 
presented as a harsh, diy, monotonous analysis, in which 
the fire, spirit, life, of the Christian polity has totally 
evaporated. Paul has, perforce, been made the author- 
ity for speculative opinions ; the warm-hearted, impet- 
uous, earnest, resolute, loving man has been treated as 
though he were a cold doctor of arid logomachies, a 
chief of the schoolmen, the convener and presiding 
genius of an assembly or a sjmod. If the Apostle were 
estimated by the use which men have made of his 
writings, we might say that no man has ever inflicted 
so much evil on mankind. But, in fact, if men had 
been content to judge him by what he says and means, 
and not by what they wish to prove, Chiistianity might 
be understood in all its tenderness, generosity, attrac- 
tiveness, and power. 

It is said that the earliest Christian sectaries, — 
those Gnostics, who, not having developed the theogony 
of Valentinus, merely busied themselves with the place 
which Christ occupied among the emanations from the 
Supreme Being, — retained or reconstructed those gos- 



THE CHILD-CHRIST. 297 

pels only which narrate the facts of the Saviour's child- 
hood. The object of these persons was to find authority 
for the theory which they entertained about the nature 
of Christ. For a different reason, there is hardly any 
part of the gospel narrative which awakes our sympa- 
thies so profoundly as the story of the Child-Christ. 
Tlie gentle mother, the journey to Bethlehem, the birth 
in the stable, the cradling in a manger, the visit of the 
Magi, the flight into Egypt, the escape from Herod, 
the return to Nazareth, the obedience to Mary and 
Joseph, the visit to Jerusalem, the scene with the doc- 
tors in the Temple, are of the deepest interest, are the 
vehicle of a thousand tender associations, justify that 
reverence for childhood which is the most marked 
characteristic of Christian society. In no part of His 
life is Christ more human than in His childhood, in no 
part is the feeling of affection towards Him more 
keenly felt than in the recurrence of the season which 
reminds us of His birth and growling up. Christ has 
granted the Shechinah to childhood, has invested it 
with the white robe of His holiness. To this St. Paul 
bears witness. They who care little for the circuit of 
the Christian year, its times and seasons, its reminders 
and its memories, are drawn perforce to the children's 
festival, the time of Christmas, the record of the birth 
of Jesus. 

The fullest statements as to the mission and work of 
Christ are found in the shorter epistles. Thus, in that 
to the Ephesians, we are told that the mystery of 
Christ was not known to mankind in former genera- 
ls* 



298 PAUL OF TABS US. 

tions as it is now revealed to His apostles and teachers 
by the Spirit; that by the Gospel preached to them 
the nations should be reckoned as heirs, incoi-porated, 
and made partners of the promise contained in Christ. 
And then St. Paul goes on to speak of the undiscovered 
riches of Christ, of the work of creation being done 
through Christ, of the wisdom of God dwelling in 
Christ, of God as the Father of Christ, of Christ's 
indwelling in His people, of the glory which comes 
from the presence of Christ in His Church. Several 
of these expressions are indeed familiar phrases of 
Jewish theology, and would be perfectly intelligible 
to those who are acquainted with the language of the 
Jewish doctors; but together they form a weight of 
significant epithets, each of which illustrates some rela- 
tion in which the Founder of Christianity is supposed 
to stand to His people, and all by reason of the relation 
in which Christ Himself stands to God. 

The Epistle to the Colossians contains even fuller 
statements on this subject. The Colossians do not 
seem to have been the converts of St. Paul, if we take 
the words, " those who have not seen my face in the 
flesh," as applying to the persons who are to receive 
the letter. But here Paul speaks of God as One " who 
has saved us from the control of darkness, and trans- 
ferred us to the kingdom of the Son of His love, iu 
whom, and by whose blood, we get redemption — 
namely, the remission of sins ; who is the image of the 
invisible God, the first-born of every creation, since in 
Him are all things created — things in heaven and 



EIS EXALTATION OF CHRIST. 299 

earth, things visible and invisible — be they thrones or 
lordships, governments or powers; all of them have 
their creation by Him and for Him ; He is before every 
thing, and all things exist in Him ; and He is the Head 
of the body of the Church ; He is the beginning, the 
First-born from the dead, that He may be chief in all 
things, because all the fulness " (a word which after- 
wards was used in a strange significance) " was con- 
tent to dwell in Him, and by it to conciliate every thing 
to Himself, who brought about peace by the blood of 
His cross, by Himself, to whatever is on earth and 
in heaven. And you," he adds, " who were once alien- 
ated, and foes to Him in mind by wicked deeds. He 
hath now conciliated in the body of His flesh, by His 
death, so as to bring you before Him holy, spotless, and 
irreproachable, provided ye remain firmly founded and 
settled in your trust, and are not distracted from the 
hope of the Gospel which you have received — a 
Gospel which is proclaimed in every creation under 
heaven, and of which I, Paul, am a servant." 

Much, again, of this ascription of attributes to the 
person of Christ, is identical with that which the He- 
brew teachers recognized in the Word. But all that 
portion of the Apostle's exposition which transfers the 
power of the Word to the work of human redemption, 
and which makes the agency of that redemption to con- 
sist in the death of Christ, is distinctively Christian, and 
is characteristic of that Gospel which Paul had preached 
throughout his life. 

A little further on in the same epistle, St. Paul 



300 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

returns again to the declaration of the effects which 
were secured by the sacrifice of Christ. He is warning 
these Colossians against the figments of a vain and 
treacherous philosophy, — against the traditions of 
human science, — against the materialism of physical 
laws. To these unsatisfying pretensions he opposes 
Christ. " He is the incarnate habitation of the fulness 
of Divinity, and ye are filled by Him, derivatively. He 
is the head of all authority and rule ; He has given you 
a spiritual circumcision, — that of Christ, — by strip- 
ping off the body of fleshly sin. You are buried with 
Him in the baptism, and by His means ye are awakened 
up through trust in the work of God which raised Him 
from the dead. Once ye were dead in sins, which are 
the uncircumcision of your flesh, and now, having made 
you the gift of pardon from your sins, God is raising 
you to life in Him." He hath blotted out that which 
was written against us, which stood in our way — the 
letter of the law — has taken it out of our path, has 
nailed it to the cross of His Son, has stripped of their 
authority other masters and other rulers, and has pub- 
licly exhibited them "when (as a Roman general did 
the captured kings and vanquished commanders in the 
procession of victory) He celebrates His triumph over 
them in the victory of the cross." Here, again, in a 
passage of dithyrambic exultation, the Apostle starts 
from the same topic — the fact that Christ represents 
the fullest incarnation of God which the theosophy of 
his age allowed, and thence argues to the prodigious 
effects which the sacrifice of so glorious a personage 



DEVELOPMENT OF CHBISTOLOGT, 301 

must have worked for the regeneration and exaltation 
of humanity, for its freedom from sin, for its reconcilia- 
tion with God, for its introduction to a new, a final, a 
holy covenant. 

It is impossible to compare these passages from the 
two epistles — written, it would appear, at the same 
time, and that late in St. Paul's life — with those which 
are to be found in such writings as the epistles to the 
Thessalonians, without discovering a great develop- 
ment in what we may call Christology. The epistles 
to the Thessalonians are the earliest parts of the New 
Testament. St. Paul had not yet been driven into an 
open rupture with Judaism. He still commends, among 
Gentiles, the imitation of the Jewish churches. The 
expectation of a speedy appearance of Christ was at 
its height, and men were looking forward, with fever- 
ish anxiety, to that coming in the clouds of heaven 
which had been predicted and promised. It is true 
that the Apostle invokes, as is his wont, the grace and 
peace of God and Christ on his converts, at the com- 
mencement of the first epistle, and utters the same 
blessing at the conclusion of each. But there is little 
or no trace of that mystical force which is ascribed to 
the death of Christ in the passages just commented 
on. We read of the hope of Christ, of the imitation 
of Him, of His endurance, of His death at the hands 
of His people, of His resurrection and its pledge, of 
His presence, of His Gospel, of the commands which 
He communicated, of the salvation eflfected by Him, 
of His speedy advent. It may be that the larger 



302 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

theory of His constructive office, in the regeneration 
of Humanity, was present to the Apostle's mind, but 
it is not expressed. There were, indeed, abundant 
reasons why that which was not revealed in the earlier, 
should be insisted on in the later epistle. As a relig- 
ion, Christianity was incomplete, until it not only 
guided the life, but satisfied the needs of the soul, 
in its search after the means of union with God. We 
do not know, and never shall know, what were the 
struggles of men after a theology in the early days of 
Christendom. We cannot see the thick of the fight, 
but we know something about the forces which stood 
in most marked antagonism to each other, and yet 
with some similarity of equipment. The Christology 
of St. Paul is before us, and so is the theosophy of the 
Gnostics. 

The purpose of the Epistle to the Romans is to 
show, though in a less marked manner than is done in 
the letter to the Galatians, that the Jewish ritual and 
ordinances are superseded by the revelation of Chris- 
tianity. Hence the Apostle insists on the effects which 
have been induced by the sacrifice of Christ, in the 
reconciliation of mau to God, and on the guarantee 
which the resurrection of Christ affords that this recon- 
ciliation is complete. Here, then, Christ is the perfect 
man, who stands in contrast to Adam ; the First-born 
among many brethren ; the Advocate of man in the 
presence of God; the Lord of dead and li^dng; the 
Judge of men; the Minister of circumcision, whose 
mission it was to confirm the promise made to the 



CHRIST IN CORINTHIAN EPISTLE. 303 

Fathers ; the descendant of David according to the 
flesh, but the Son of God in power; by whom we are 
heirs of God, fellow-heirs with Christ ; who, if we suf- 
fer with Him, may be glorified with Him in the end. 
He is exalted and glorified, because He has been 
humbled, betrayed, put to death ; He reigns over all, 
because he has undergone, for man's sake, the lot of a 
servant. He is the perfect Type of humanity, in whom 
converges every grace, power, gift, function, which may 
be needed for the grand purpose of His coming, — that 
of recovering the race of man, of aiding the suffering 
and groaning creation in gaining that which it expects 
so earnestly, — the redemption of the body, the adop- 
tion into sonship, which even the first-fruits of the 
Spirit need. 

In the First Epistle to the Corinthians, there is a 
passage which is full of beauty, tenderness, and hope, 
and has thereupon been selected as a most consolatory 
exhortation to those who are saddened by the bereave- 
ment of their dearest and best beloved. In the chap- 
ter which is read at the Anglican burial service, occurs 
a remarkable statement as to the place of Christ in the 
Divine economy. Beginning from the position laid 
down in the Epistle to the Romans, that death is the 
lot of the sons of Adam, life the gift of Christ's resur- 
rection, the Apostle proceeds to say that this re-grant 
of life is exhibited in a definite order, — that the first- 
fruit of the great harvest is Christ ; next, those who, 
at the sudden presence of Christ, are His. And then, 
St. Paul continues, " the end will come. Christ will 



304 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

then deliver up the kingdom to God and the Father, in 
order that He may bring to an end all rule, authority, 
and power. Christ must reign till He hath put all 
enemies under His feet ; the last enemy who is to be 
brought to an end being death. God, " says the Apos- 
tle, quoting the words of the Psalmist, when he speaks 
of the power conferred on man, " has put all things 
under His feet." " But," he adds, " the words, * He 
hath put all things under him,' imply that the Being 
who has granted this authority is external and superior 
to such a dispensation ; and that, therefore, when this 
subjugation is finally accomplished, the Son Himself 
must be subject to the God from whom this authority is 
derived, that God may be supreme in every thing. " It 
is impossible to explain away these unambiguous words, 
which distinctly express the Apostle's conviction that 
the present relation of Christ to the Father, and to the 
creation which He has saved, are determined by the 
cessation of the visible creation, by the second coming 
of Christ. This event, as we have already seen, was 
perpetually expected by the believers in the Apostolic 
age, and is nowhere declared to be more immediate 
than in this very passage. "I tell you," he says, "a 
mystery. We shall not all die, but we shall all be trans- 
formed." The existing generation is to see the greater 
advent, and, with it, the reabsorption of all imparted 
power into the unity of God. In the Pauline Chris- 
tology, the perfection of Christ's Being is achieved by 
the death on the cross. " He puts on the figure of a 
slave, exists in the likeness of man and in the fashion 



HIS VIVID CONCEPTION OF CHRIST. 305 

of a man, humbles Himself, subjects Himself to death, 
the death of the cross ; and is therefore highly exalted 
by God, is gifted with a name above every name, is the 
object of reverence to every thing in heaven, earth, and 
hell, and is confessed to be Lord by every tongue, to 
the glory of God the Father." The completion of His 
office is contained in His second coming, in His judg- 
ment, and in the final and eternal reconciliation of man 
to God. Then His work is done, — His mission is a 
glorious memory, — He is again the perfection of hu- 
manity, the first-born of all creation, the first-born 
among many brethren. Such a Christology differs 
largely from that of the Nicene doctors. It is bounded 
by the period which lies between the death of Christ, 
or rather His resurrection, and that consummation of 
all things which the Apostle thought so near. 

But, though the Christology of Paul contained none 
of the exact definitions which the conflicts of later 
theology developed, nothing, on the other hand, which 
we cfin conceive, is so intense to the Apostle as the 
personality of Him whom he saw on the road to 
Damascus, and saw but once. None even of those 
who had passed the three years in His company, 
had so vivid, so permanent an apprehension of Christ 
as Paul had. The Master, Saviour, Redeemer, Ad- 
vocate, Judge, is present to him in every act, in 
every relation of life. Christ, a real, living Person, 
is the beginning and end of his thoughts, is ever in 
his heart, always on his lips. He never loses sight of 
the vision. It carries him — how, he knows not — to 



306 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

heaven, and fills his mind with Divine voices, with 
words which, hke the name of the Almighty, were 
incommunicable. In all his bodily weakness, in all the 
trials of his life, he is trium^ohant, a conqueror through 
Him who strengthened him. He is never alone, he 
can never be separated from the love of Christ. Christ 
has literally come to him, and taken up his. abode with 
him. He has the mind of Christ, bears the marks of 
Christ on his body, fills up what is left of His afflic- 
tions, knows and exults over the deep, the unsearch- 
able riches of Him whose servant, minister, apostle he 
is. The fourth gospel tells us of one whom Jesus loved. 
The Pauline epistles depict us a man who loved Jesus, 
with a perfect, all-absorbing, unremitting devotion. 
Other men have served Him, worshipped Him. Paul 
dedicated his whole nature to the Person whom he 
once persecuted, but now loved Avith every power of a 
large heart, a vigorous will, and an imaginative mind. 
However long we may search into the history of relig- 
ious emotions, we shall find no parallel to this man's 
concentrated love for Christ. He combines what is 
seen or told to us in the characters of Peter, Mary 
Magdalene, John — ardent zeal, loving adoration, rapt 
contemplation. To such a person, the definition of 
that which is beloved would be unnatural and even 
odious. Who attempts to analyze his own heart, Avhen 
if is occupied by one engrossing affection ? 

In degree, this feehng towards Christ was shared 
by the early Christians. The celebrated letter of Pliny 
to Trajan is evidence of its prevalence in Bithynia; the 



FADING OF MEMORIES OF CHRIST. 80T 

contemptuous sneers of Lucian are proof that it lasted 
in Syria and Greece. Gradually, however, as the per- 
sonal memories of Christ faded away, and the survivors 
of the Apostolic age became fewer and fewer — as the 
expectation of His coming grew more distant by delay, 
and men even murmured at the slackness of His 
promise — as the watching for His appearance was su- 
perseded by the dream of Chiliasm — as the thousand 
years of the Petrine Epistle, and of the Apocalyptic 
vision, were developed into the belief in a visible reign 
of the glorified Son over an impregnable Paradise on 
earth, into which the faithful should be gathered, — 
Christ ceased to be a person, a man, and became a 
nature, an hypostasis, a debate, a disputation. The 
love of Christ was ultimately strangled by the growth 
of opinion. The faith of the Apostolic age — origin- 
ally trust in a living, present, energetic power, which 
was able to save to the uttermost all who came to God 
through Him, as the author of the Epistle to the 
Hebrews declares — became the acceptance of a series 
of abstract propositions, not one of which touched the 
heart, or strengthened the will. But Christianity is 
always compelled to seek for its sanctions in something 
more impulsive than a series of definitions ; perpetually 
revives itself by tearing to pieces, or breaking through 
the cobwebs of a subtle logic; and always puts before 
the believjer's mind a personal Chiist, a perfect Man, a 
Being to love, to live for, to labor for, to die for, to 
hope in. The humanity of Christ makes martyrs; 
disputes about the nature of His divinity have bred 



308 



PAUL OF TARSUS. 



schoolmen and inquisitors. The teaching of Chris- 
tianity always encounters the typical Jew and the 
typical Greek ; — the one, being occupied by the dream 
of an exact system, finds impassioned faith a stum- 
bling-block, a wild enthusiasm ; the other, wrapt up in 
the invulnerable armor of his own intelligence, moral- 
izes on the weakness of humanity, its liability to im- 
pulse, its uncritical acquiescence in sentiment and 
emotion. But, when once the religious sense is thor- 
oughly aroused, these critics cavil in vain. The love 
for the perfect man, Christ Jesus — whose wisdom, 
beneficence, self-sacrifice, are so old, and yet so new ; 
so wonderful, and yet so familiar; so wide in their 
effects, and yet so intensely personal in their appeal to 
individual sympathy — again occupies the heart of 
man, and gains its fervid allegiance. In brief, when- 
ever Christianity is reconstructed, and the mind of 
Christ reigns in man, man reverts to the pattern of the 
Apostolic age, exhibits an intense affection for the 
humanity of Christ, and inaugurates a fi-esh epoch of 
charity towards his fellows. But, as soon as dogma- 
tism reasserts itself, Christ is lost in a maze of 
definitions, and the preacher of the Gospel is tempted 
to become a persecutor and injurious. 

The reader will not, of course, conclude that this 
attempt at expounding the Pauline Christology intends 
to indicate a judgment on any theological hypothesis 
as to the Nature of Christ. The utmost inference 
which it is intended to make is, that the popular behef 
in that which since the days of the Nicene Fathers 



CHRIST IN THE HjEBBEWS EPISTLE. 309 

has been accounted orthodox, finds no positive proof 
in the Pauline epistles, but rather, to judge from the 
important passage already quoted fi-oni the First 
Epistle to the Corinthians, is repugnant to this 
Apostle's conception of Christ's place in the Divine 
economy. It is possible that, had Paul been ques- 
tioned as to the Nature of Christ, he would have 
answered according to the Nicene symbol, and that 
he might not have considered the phraseology of this 
creed a mass of those dialectical subtleties which he 
advises the Roman Christians to avoid. It is idle to 
inquire what would have been the attitude of the 
Apostle towards the heresiarchs of the third and fourth 
centuries, had their opinions been matured in the 
earliest age of Christianity, just as it is superfluous to 
ask what he would have recommended as a permanent 
form of church government, had he been appealed to 
by the first advocates of the Roman primacy, or by 
the opponents of ecclesiastical centralization. 

Nor can it be denied that the author of the Epistle 
to the Hebrews, — who was certainly not St. Paul, 
whoever else he may have been, — makes far more 
positive declarations as to the Nature of Christ than 
Paul does. The first chapter of this epistle indicates 
a development in the history of Christology whicli 
goes beyond the Pauline utterances. It is true that, 
in the course of the argument, the humanity of the 
Saviour is made the basis of the parallel between 
Him and the chief of a superseded ceremonial; the 
eternal priesthood having been, in the language of the 



310 



PAUL OF TARSUS. 



writer, conferred on Christ by the initiative of God. 
In other particulars, the epistle ascribes to Christ those 
qualities and attributes which the philosophers of the* 
Alexandrian Jewry assigned to the Messiah of their 
hope. But the fullest witness to the Nicene doctrine 
is given by the author of the Apocalypse and of the 
fourth gospel. It was not, then, without reason that 
the emperor Julian was, as we are told, accustomed to 
say, that the Divinity of Christ was no tenet of the 
three Evangelists, or of Paul ; but of John, — the John, 
who is the reputed author of the fourth gospel and the 
Apocalypse; for the epistles ascribed to this apostle 
do not go beyond the Pauline doctrine. 

It is possible that the doctrine of the Nicene Fathers 
is nothing more than a necessary inference from the 
position which the^ earliest teachers of Christianity 
assigned to the great Founder of their faith. The 
mission of Christ was to save a world, and this 
function could not be fulfilled by any but one person. 
In view of this great office, it was natural, perhaps 
necessary, to accumulate on His person the attributes 
of the Almighty. As men came more and more to 
feel and believe that the salvation of each man was a 
mystery of miraculous power, they were more and 
more led to see that He who was gifted with this 
exalted mediation was in the counsels of the Father 
from the beginning, and that He shared for ever in 
the majesty and power of the Eternal. To lower His 
Nature was to disparage His work. To exalt it was 
to confess the un worthiness of man, and the mighty 



SPECIAL FACTS OF HIS OOSPEL. 311 

mercy of God. The harmony of the human and the 
Divine nature occupied, as is well known, the keenest 
intelligence of the Eastern world, then the centre of 
dialectical skill and philosophical speculation. The 
result is to be found in those creeds which were gradu- 
ally elaborated during the fourth and fifth centuries, 
and notably by the termination of the last great theo- 
logical controversy — that in which the teaching of 
Pelagius was formally cgndemned, and the Nature of 
Christ was formally and precisely defined. It is prob- 
able that soon after this, the last of the creeds — that, 
namely, which has been ascribed to Athanasius — was 
constructed. 

The death and resurrection of Christ were the 
special facts on which St. Paul insisted. The former 
was not of course disputed, though, after a time, a 
strange sect pretended that a phantom was crucified, 
the true Christ having been mysteriously conveyed 
away. But the resurrection was no novel utterance 
from the mouth of Paul, at least to the Jews, — who 
generally accepted the doctrine of a corporeal resurrec- 
tion. It was a characteristic tenet of the Pharisees ; 
and the story of St. Paul having created a diversion in 
his own favor, by affirming that he was charged with 
maintaining the resurrection of the dead, is completely 
in accordance with what we know of the dissensions 
which prevailed on this topic among the Jews. The 
rationalists denied and ridiculed, the mystics affirmed 
the doctrine. On the other hand, the heathen world 
thought, with Festus, that a man who held the resur- 



312 PAVL OF TARSUS. 

rection of the dead to be a possibility was a madman. 
The mass of the people believed in a world of spirits, 
— as men have almost invariably believed. Much of 
the familiar theology of the ancient world was based 
on spirit-worship. The Penates of the Roman house- 
hold appear to have represented the deceased ances- 
tors of the family. The early civilization of Rome 
gathered from the mysterious Etruscan race — w^ho 
were, probably, a fragment of -that great family which 
throve in ancient Egypt, and still exists in Eastern 
Asia — the characteristic tenet of reverence for the 
spirits of departed relatives. But this worship had 
become an archaism in the Christian era. The gentry 
of the Roman empire accepted that notion of a com- 
fortless immortality which is stated in the Odyssey in 
its naked gloominess, and which is pictured in the 
phrase, " Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." 
The lowest condition of life was better than the best 
hopes of the dead. So Achilles, the type of Greek 
heroism, is made to think. The last representative of 
Etruscan nobility, Maecenas — the friend and minister 
of Augustus; the patron of art, learning, poetry — 
shuddered at the change from life to death, and wel- 
comed any suffering if he were only left with the boon 
of existence. This dread is not fear of annihilation, 
of absorption into a universal essence. It is a belief 
that sensation survives death, and that the departed' 
soul exchanges for the gladness, the light, the wai*mth, 
the energy of corporeal existence, a sad, dark, cold, 
motiveless being, in which the memories of departed 



HIS IDEAS OF RESURRECTION. 313 

and irrecoverable enjoyments remain, to curse rather 
than to console. This exchange of death for life — 
from the point of view taken' by the Epicurean who 
believed in the soul's immortality — has never been 
described with such precision as by Shakspeare, in 
the words put into the mouth of Claudio, — 

" Ay, but to die, and go we know not where ; 
To lie in cold obstruction and to rot ; 
This sensible warm motion to become 
A kneaded clod ; and the delighted spirit 
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside 
In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice ; 
To be imprisoned in the viewless winds, 
And blown with restless violence round about 
The pendent world ; or to be worse than worst 
Of those, that lawless and incertain thought 
Imagine howling : 'tis too horrible ! 
The weariest and most loathed worldly life 
That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment 
Can lay on nature, is a paradise 
To what we fear of death." 

The resurrection of Christ was, according to St. 
Paul, the earnest of a general resurrection. Whether 
he held that they who had failed to reach the Gospel of 
the Divine mercy, would partake of the resurrection 
which Christ had secured for them who were His at 
His coming is not clear. In the Acts of the Apostles, 
he is represented as holding the view of a universal 
resurrection in his address to Felix, in which just and 
unjust shall appear before the Judge. But, in the 
epistles, the hopes of the resun-ection are generally 
limited to them who believe, though he speaks in the 
14 



314 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

Second Epistle to the ConDthians, of all appearing 
before the judgment-seat of Christ, each to receive 
good or evil according to what he hath done in the 
body. But, as has been observed before, the theocracy 
of St. Paul does not concern itself so much with those 
who are rejected as unworthy of salvation, or with the 
destiny of those who refuse to accept the Gospel, as it 
does with the hopes and the blessings of those who 
receive and keep it. It is enough that a glorious 
immortality is promised to them who love Christ. 
There was no interest in curiously investigating the 
case of the wicked and unbelieving. 

To this resurrection of the just, Paul clings with 
intense earnestness and confidence. Take it away, and 
all the purpose of his life is gone, every sacrifice which 
he has made is valueless, the redemption of man has 
not been achieved, they who have fallen asleep in 
Christ are perished. They who have lived in this 
hope are the most pitiable of all men ; the only alterna- 
tive in this blank despah* is a life of epicurean enjoy- 
ment. And this expectation of a bright future, an 
eternal existence of rest and joy, is heightened by 
the conviction that he will live with the object of his 
unwearied love, the glorified man Christ Jesus. In 
some undefined place, in the third heaven, at the right 
hand of God, in some house not made with hands, but 
eternal in the heavens. He, the Lord Christ is; and 
there His disciples. His new creation, will meet Him 
and dwell with Him, what time this earthly habitation 
— this mere tent of passing life — is dissolved or 



PROOF BY NATURAL ANALOGIES. 315 

destroyed. It is in the air, the heavens, — the symbols 
of light and brightness, and purity. But these places 
are a figure, as the resun-ection is a mystery, the repre- 
sentative of an unexpounded future, of a new Jerusa- 
lem, the eternal home of the true and just. As yet, 
however, though we cannot see Him with mortal eyes, 
this Jesus, the Saviour and the Friend, is present 
everywhere. They put Him on ; He dwells with them. 
Hereafter the union will be closer, the presence per- 
petual, the vision one of inexpressible glory. 

The Apostle anticipates the retort of those who 
object to him, and who may raise the question, — How 
are the dead raised, and in what body do they come? 
In the visible world there are diversities of existence, 
and the analogy holds in its invisible or transcendental 
counterpart. And then he compares the resurrection 
to the growth of the plant from the seed, in language 
well known to every one, the figure being worked out 
with great poetical beauty. Such comparisons between 
physical development and gi'owth, and the resurrection 
of the body, were instituted by the Jewish doctors. 
Thus the Gemara contains a conversation between 
Gamaliel and Caesar — by whom is probably meant 
Augustus — in which the great Rabbi is represented 
as victoriously refuting the emperor's scepticism, and 
proving that the resurrection of the body, wonderful 
though it be, is paralleled by the perpetual occurrence 
of other and greater wonders in the ordinary process 
of physical generation. 

To accept the doctrine of the resurrection, and to 



316 



PAUL OF TABS US. 



extend it to the race of man, or at best to the faithftil, 
was a difficult problem to the Gentile mind. That 
audience at Athens which listened with attention to 
the Apostle while he discoursed of the spiritual Nature 
of the Almighty, the unity of the human race, the 
providence of God, the search which man must needs 
make after Him, the coming judgment, and the person 
of the Judge, were startled into contempt when they 
heard him speak of the resurrection of the dead. But 
the doctrine, once accepted, was full of profound con- 
solations. They who behoved this tenet were after- 
wards afraid of nothing. Assured of a real, a conscious 
eternity of unimaginable blessedness, they could endure 
any calamity with confidence. The restitution was to 
be complete, perpetual. The loss, suffering, scorn which 
could be inflicted on them by any human power was 
transient, trifling. They who believe that a happy 
immortality is the reward of this life and labor are 
invincible. And thus, as by anticipation, the Apostle 
speaks of those who have been admitted into the com- 
monwealth of Christendom as already dead. His words 
appear to have been misinterpreted by some who heard 
them, and who, like Hymenaeus and Philetus, alleged 
that thereupon the resurrection had happened already. 
But to the mass of them who believed, death was an 
exchange from a life of sorrow, persecution, weakness, 
into a perfect and glorious eternity, as soon as ever the 
second coming of Christ took place — an event which 
was daily expected. Then, immediately on the sound 
of the trumpet which should summon them to accom- 



DERIVATION OF CHRISTIAN DUTIES. 317 

pany Him who Avould meet them in the air, the king- 
doms of the world, the cruel empire of Antichrist, 
would be shattered, and every thing would be made 
subject to God and His Christ. 

To this belief in a risen Christ, who has all that pro- 
found sympathy with human nature which makes Him 
so winning — all that gentleness which invests the 
Saviour with such ineffable grace — all that holiness 
which at once attracts the soul, and yet constrains it 
to be ever watchful, lest some contamination should 
hinder intercourse with Him — Paul links his concep- 
tion of a church, his rule of Christian life. From Christ 
came all gifts. In Him is the unity of the brotherhood. 
In Him begins the life of the believer. In Him the 
believer rests. For Him the believer labors. In Him 
he gets his strength. By him he has abundant confi- 
dence in the mercy and love of God. 

The derivation of Christian duties from a trust in 
Chiist is a matter of frequent exhortation in the 
Pauline epistles. Take that, for example, in the letter 
to the Ephesians. " I who am a prisoner in the Lord, 
exhort you to walk worthily of the vocation to which 
you have been called. Show all conciliation, and gen- 
tleness, and patience, considerate love for each other, 
making it your business to maintain oneness of spirit, 
in the bond of peace. There is one body, one spirit, 
just as you have one hope in the fact of your calling ; 
there is one Lord, one trust, one baptism, one God and 
Father of all, who is over all things, who permeates all 
things, and is in all of you. Each one of us has His 



318 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

grace conferred on him according to gifts of Christ. 
This is what the text means : — ' Having ascended to 
the height, He led captivity captive and gave gifts to 
men.' The expression ' ascended ' imphes that He 
previously descended to the lowest region of earth. 
And He that ascended is the very Person who has as- 
cended above the whole heavens, that He may occupy 
all things. And this Person has of his gifts made 
some apostles, some preachers, some evangelists, some 
shepherds and teachers, in order to effect the perfection 
of the saints, for the work of service, for the building 
up the body of Christ, — to continue till we all con- 
verge in the unity of our trust, and of our acquaint- 
ance with the Son of God, into a perfected manhood, 
to the measure of that growth which contains Christ. 
Be not, therefore, any longer foolish children, tossed 
about and twisted round by every blast of dogma, by 
the tricks of men, who, for sinister ends, would cun- 
ningly entrap you in error ; but, on the contrary, utter- 
ing the truth in love, let us grow in every thing up to 
Him who is the head, the Christ, from whom the whole 
body is fitted and brought together in every joint 
of its perfection, and, according to the vigor ^\'hich 
belongs to every member, who effects the growth of 
the body for its own construction in love." 

This passage is only one among many in which the 
Apostle — comparing the union of Christian men to 
the highest hving organism — intends to imply that 
Christ is to the Church what life and intelligence are to 
the physical nature of mankind, — the source of its 



THE PAULINE MORALITY HIGH. 319 

vitality and enlightenment. Nothing can be more 
simple than the elements of the creed with which this 
analogy is consistent. To know that Christ lived and 
taught, died and rose again, in order to redeem man 
from bondage, reconcile him to God, save him, was the 
knowledge needed for that primitive faith. To know 
this, and know it thoroughly, was to trust in Him and 
the Father, and, thereupon, to obtain the benefits of 
Christ's coming. Then comes the perpetual indwelling 
of Christ, the transformation of man's moral nature, 
and the code of duties, which, flowing naturally from 
the conditions of a Christian polity, have a permanent 
sanction, by being fulfilled in the highest Exemplar of 
human life, the life of Christ ; and by becoming, as they 
are fulfilled by the disciple, the pledge and requisite of 
His indwelling. 

It cannot be said that this perpetual reference of the 
Christian life to the assistance of a glorified Person, 
who sustains, exalts, and perfects it, is accompanied by 
any concession to laxity of practice or conduct. On 
the contrary, the rule of the Pauline morality is as 
high as can be conceived. He utterly broke with the 
ceremonial law, his indifierence to Judaism growing 
into complete antipathy to it as he had greater experi- 
ence of its narrowness, its pedantry, its inconsistency 
with Christian liberty. He is manifestly careless about 
observances which were exacted rigorously in his own 
time from the Jewish Christians. For example, he 
speaks of keeping the Sabbath as a matter of indiffer- 
ence, in the Galatians as even a mark of feeble com- 



320 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

pliance with what he calls the "beggarly elements." 
He assigns no overwhelming importance to those rites 
which are peculiarly Christian — the Sacraments of 
the Gospel — for he expressly declares that he did not 
himself baptize, except on rare occasions, and he makes 
only one marked reference to the Lord's Supper; 
when, indeed, he strongly condemns the practice of 
those who perverted it into a scene of selfish jollity, of 
grossly unbecoming levity. He is practically silent on 
chui'ch government. He speaks almost contemptuously 
of the Twelve, and of their pretensions to authority. 
So little was he characterized by exactitude of phrase, 
and precision of definition, that those heretics of the 
first ages, against whose tenets much of the early con- 
troversial theology of the Christian fathers is directed, 
a knowledged his authority, and quoted from his epis- 
tles in confirmation of their theories. 

On the other hand, St. Paul is, after the Master, the 
moralist of the Gospel. His dii'ections as to conduct 
are numerous, precise, exhaustive. Besides those which 
address themselves to the individual, and which exact 
from him obedience to a pure and searching code of 
conduct, he gives directions as to the behavior of men 
as members of churches, as holding intercourse with 
the world around them, as united in the great brother- 
hood of Christianity. He lays do^Ti rules for families, 
— on the relations of husband and wife, parent and 
child, master and servant, — all these rules being genial 
and rational. He commends neither asceticism, first 
preached by the Buddhists, and afterwards affirmed by 



PAUL'S IDEA OF A CHRISTIAN. 321 

Manichean perversity ; nor monachism, which is a form 
of ajDathetic communism. His Christian is a man in 
the world, who must, perhaps, considering the purpose 
of his Hfe, and the peculiar trials of his calling, abstain 
from what is in itself lawful and expedient, in order 
that he may be disentangled from the temporary risks 
which his profession ran. But, on the whole, the Pau- 
line morality is personal and domestic. The advice 
which he gives to ttie Corinthians, that, under existing 
emergencies, a single life is the safest, is professedly an 
opinion. In the Epistle to Timothy, he expressly speaks 
of compulsory celibacy as a doctrine of devils. This 
plain-spoken sentiment may be a contemptuous allusion 
to the Ebionite Christians, who had given him so much 
trouble, but the experience of society is not adverse 
to the judgment of St. Paul. He would have people 
work for their living, inculcating the duty of industry 
in terms as plain as those which are ivsed by the Polit- 
ical Economist. His language about those who lazily 
depend on chance or charity for the wants of their 
family or their dependants is even stronger, for he 
speaks of such as denying the faith or trust they should 
have in God, and as lower in tone than the unbeliever. 
That he was no advocate of niccsfardliness towards 
such as need help, is proved by his continual advice to 
those who were able to assist poverty or distress from 
their abundance ; for he knew that poverty will always 
exist, and that the habit of judicious almsgiving is a 
good means of moral culture ; but he was slow to re- 
ceive assistance himself, and it is hardly possible to fail 
14* u 



322 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

of seeing a covert sarcasm in the solitary injunction 
wMctL lie confesses to having received fi'om the Apos- 
tolic College, that he and his associates should remem- 
ber the poor, by which is meant the community at 
Jerusalem. He did remember them, and owed his 
imprisonment at Caesarea and Rome to his efforts on 
their behalf However ascetic Christianity may have 
become in the second and third centuries of our era, 
there is no warranty for such a tteory of religion in 
the Pauline teaching of the first. 

It is unfair to the gi'eat moralist and statesman (if 
we may employ the latter phrase) of the infant Church, 
not to distinguish him fi'om those who succeeded to 
his mission. Christianity was charged — has been 
charged continually — with making men austere, re- 
served, unpatriotic^ dreamy. There is no warranty for 
this reproach in the teaching of Paul, whose estimate 
of the claims which even the corrupt society of the 
time in which he lived, and in particular that of Cor- 
inth, is just and forcible. In a true spirit of toleration, 
he would not have his converts avoid the society 
of idolaters, though he would — as every respectable 
heathen would have advised — recommend them to 
abstain fi-om intercourse with profligate or immoral 
persons. He does not advise married persons, one of 
whom may be brought under the influence of the Gos- 
pel, while the other clung to heathenism, to use the 
fi-eedom of divorce which the Roman law gave, — and 
this for domestic as well as for religious reasons. Even 
his advice of patience to slaves is part of the theory 



SOCIAL STATE BEFORE CHRISTIANITY. 323 

which he held, — that Christianity can accommodate 
itself to any condition of society, provided men are 
obedient to the Divine law, are scrupulous in the fulfil- 
ment of all duties. 

They who charge the Christianity of the Kew Test- 
ament with timidity and want of spirit, should re- 
member what the social state was in which it began 
its work. The world never saw before or since so 
relentless, so wide, so jealous, so immoral a despot- 
ism, — has never seen one which was so strong in sheer 
force. Now, there are two ways in which a reforma- 
tion of morals and opinion can be attempted. ,The one 
is resistance — which is rarely efficacious, and in this 
case would have been madness ; the other is endurance, 
— which generally succeeds, and which would have 
succeeded far more completely in the history of Chris- 
tianity, had not the Christians of the fourth century 
clutched at power as soon as they were able to grasp it. 
The Roman empire became Christian by the patience 
of the first three centuries ; but Christianity failed to 
regenerate society, because it readily became the tool 
of the later empire — became an establishment instead 
of a gospel, a logomachy instead of a rule of life. The 
dower which Constantine gave the Church was, as 
Dante says, the parent of vast mischief, and more than 
counterbalanced the splendor of the imperial conver- 
sion. Let any one compare for himself the theoretical 
teaching of Paul with the practical bearing of all that 
he affirms, and he will have no difficulty in determin- 



324 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

ing what would have been the history of the world if 
those who came after the Jew of Tarsus had been rep- 
resentatives of his spii'it, as well as successors to his 
office. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE soul of man longs for illumination and pardon. 
It is ignorant, and led astray by evil impulses. 
It is conscious of transgression, whetlier the law which 
it has violated be natural — or, to speak in the spirit of 
modern philosophy, one which society has elaborated 
and enforced for its own preservation ; or conventional 
— by which must be understood some rule of munici- 
pal custom ; or divine — that is, has been propounded 
by an authority which claims to be instructed by God. 
The construction of human society renders it necessary 
that interruptions of its peace, or invasions of that 
security which all political institutions profess to war- 
rant, should be repressed and punished. Punishments 
inflicted by human law are sometimes treated as vindic- 
tive, sometimes as corrective, according as it seems 
necessary to avenge a wrong, or to prevent the recur- 
rence of an injury ; to compensate the suiferer, or to 
protect the general order of society by deterrents which 
intending criminals can appreciate and dread. A later 
theory of punishment, which has been developed from 
humanitanan Christianity, and from it alone, proposes 
to effect the reformation of the offender. It is possible 
that the acceptance of this humane theory of punish- 



326 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

ment may be assisted by the fact, that the judgment of 
law is fallible, both in its decision of the act and in its 
interpretation of the motive, and that, therefore, the 
case of the criminal is and should be open to favorable 
consideration. But this is not the original theory of 
social defence. Men must accept the risk which the 
administration of law by a fallible judge involves, since 
they obtain the advantages of its administration, for the 
latter are immeasurably greater than the former. If a 
legislature seeks to reform its criminals, it does so 
because it has been interpenetrated by that instinct of 
the religious sense which makes the salvation of a human 
soul at once a duty and a merit. In this country such 
an opinion is strongly entertained. But there have 
not been wanting jurists and moralists who, looking at 
society fi'om the stand-point of utility, have entertained 
a harsher theory of punishment, — have conceived that 
crime is best checked by relying on the deterrent force 
of punishment onh'", is even stimulated by the ma- 
chinery of a reformatory in which criminals are to 
repent and amend. 

It is to be observed that law ignores many offences 
against morality, and frequently punishes acts which 
are no violation of morality whatever. A man may 
lead a life which is profligate and scandalous, may set 
an evil example, may mislead or debauch others. But, 
however mischievous his coui'se of action may be, 
society may not visit him with any penalties of law, — 
partly because it has seen good reason to limit the 
operation of criminal justice ; partly because the evil 



THE RANGE OF HUMAN LAW. 327 

which the culprit does is legally imponderable or vague 
in its effects ; sometimes because the check which law 
could impose might induce other practices quite as 
mischievous, or even more dangerous in their effects, 
but less open to detection or reprobation. For it must 
not be forgotten that custom has a wider range of cor- 
rective action than law has, and that its preventive 
power is even more efficacious than that of judicial 
punishment. And, on the other hand, both law and 
custom visit with penalty and rebuke practices which 
are not in themselves immoral. The laws of nearly 
every country inflict disabilities, and prohibit acts 
which are in themselves just and natural. Thus, for 
instance, they have disabled persons who entertain 
particular beliefs, or are unable to entertain other 
beliefs, — sometimes treating certain opinions as the 
highest crimes. They who challenge the value or 
advantage of established institutions, whether political 
or ecclesiastical, have been visited with nearly equal 
rigor; have been condemned, proscribed, banished, 
though their opinions have been simply speculative. 
Over and over again it has happened that the fathers 
have slain, and the sons have canonized the prophets. 
Christianity has lasted for nearly nineteen centuries, 
and Christian men have not yet accepted the command 
laid down by the great Master of their religion, — " Let 
wheat and tares grow together till the harvest." 

It is inevitable that man should recognize among the 
attributes of God the functions of a judge. He does 
80 from the analogy of civil society. The office of the 



328 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

judge is the most beneficent and the most sacred of 
human institutions. Reverence for law is the first con- 
dition of civilization ; the administration of law is the 
most permanent and useful service which a citizen ob- 
tains from the State ; obedience to law is the first civil 
duty, and the judge is the impersonation of these 
benefits. This is the power to which the Apostle 
commands subjection — ascribing its authority, even 
when wielded by the heathen, to the direct ordina- 
tion of God. But human law is confessedly imperfect, 
— cannot right all wrongs — cannot punish all injuries. 
Hence they whom law does not reach, and they whom 
law does not aid, will inevitably be cited to appear be- 
fore the Judge of all, in order that the question may 
be tried, and right may be done. So the religious 
sense, whenever it intrenches itself in moral obliga- 
tions, always afiiirms. Recompense, restitution, are 
assured in that judgment; patience, hope, faith, are 
developed from a confidence that it will be pronounced. 
The Divine tribunal is a permanent court of appeal 
from human error and human partiality. It is set up 
in the mythology of Greece and Rome, in Eastern 
nations, in the polytheism of Egypt, in every creed 
which is spiritual. In the Mosaic theology the Judge 
chastises the ofiender with temporal suflfering, rewards 
or recompenses the injured person with temporal bless- 
ing — the appeal being immediate, the providence secu- 
lar, since the ancient Israelite is always represented as 
living under the direct government of Jehovah. The 
people were in view of the Shekinah, and the doctrine 



THE RANGE OF DIVINE LAW. 329 

of hereafter remained undeveloped in the majesty of 
His presence. 

They who cherish the thought that God is a judge 
between man and man, cannot but confess that their 
own acts are open to His interpretation, and within 
the scope of His judgment. Sometimes, indeed, per- 
sons have believed that they run no risk of His anger, 
— that they are elect, impeccable, assured of His per- 
j^etual favor; that in their case at least, judgment is 
foregone. But the conscience of most men is proof 
against this egotism. They are not arrogant enough 
to claim perfection, but, on the contrary, are alive to 
faults in themselves — to infirmity of purpose, negli- 
gence in practice, readiness in yielding to temptation, 
forgetfulness of duty, unfair or ungenerous dealing to- 
wards others. They know that such acts and feelings, 
if unchecked, are the beginning of those offences which 
even human law reaches ; and if they know so much, 
how much more must He know, whose equity as a 
judge is the consequent of His perfect wisdom, tran- 
scendent knowledge, universal providence. 

The range of the Divine judgment, therefore, must 
be vastly wider than that of human law. Man can 
deal only with that which is actual, but the prescience 
of the Almighty detects the offence in its beginnings, 
when it is only potential, when the germ of the evil is 
commencing its growth. Man can deal only with some 
offences — those, namely, which inflict a definite and 
intelligible injury on individuals or on the security of 
society ; but God judges that which offends His holi- 



330 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

ness, or does damage to the civitas Dei. Man adjudi- 
cates on intentions when they are developed into ac- 
tion; the Divine sight takes cognizance of thoughts, 
from which actions may spring. The fallibility of man 
constrains him to treat doubtful cases with leniency, 
unless justice is to become unduly severe and intolera- 
bly capricious ; but in the light of God's countenance 
there is nothing doubtful, in the clearness of His judg- 
ment nothing falhble. It is no wonder then, that when 
this conception of the great Judge occupies the relig- 
ious sense, no sacrifice is too costly to deprecate the 
anger which He may be supposed to feel at the offence 
which He sees so plainly and so unerringly, — the 
extent and meaning of which He recognizes with far 
greater distinctness than the tenderest and most sus- 
ceptible conscience can conceive it. To acknowledge 
the judgment of God is, by inevitable sequence, to con- 
fess and know that a clear, vigilant, penetrating eye is 
always fixed on the innermost nature of each man, and 
that as this vision sees every thing, so it forgets noth- 
ing. The scriptures of the Old Testament, and par- 
ticularly the Psalms, constantly affirm the unwearied 
and watchful scrutiny of the Divine presence. The 
language of the New is not less precise as to the uni- 
versality of the same Providence. 

The conception would be intolerable, were it not that 
so sensitive a religious instinct invariably assigns to 
the Almighty a beneficent regard for His creatures, a 
willinguess to accept repentance, a readiness to bestow 
strength and deliverance, — the qualities of forbear- 



QOD'S JUDGMENT AND COMPASSION. 331 

ance, long-sufFering, patience, compassion. He is the 
Father, who not only supplies the wants, but bears 
with the petulance and disobedience of His children. 
His wrath is roused against those only who deny Him 
his due honor, who say He is not, who go astray after 
other gods, who repudiate His authority, as well as dis- 
regard His injunctions. But to those who acknowl- 
edge Him, He is always placable. He always invites 
them to repent. He always accepts their penitence. He 
always grants them forgiveness. It is every thing to 
know Him, for when He is known, the awful features 
of the great Judge become a vision of ineffable tender- 
ness and pity, of sympathy for weak and struggling 
humanity, of Fatherly love for wayward childhood, of 
watchfulness over feeble steps, of attention to the 
utterance of wants and desires, of solicitude, bounty, 
gentleness. He is the wise and tender Father, who 
shows compassion to all His children. 

One thing, however, He exacts, — as He is merciful, 
so man must be merciful. He will not forgive the 
unforgiving. The surest sign of impenitence is a hard, 
imperious, unpitying temper. It is as though He could 
not but exact on behalf of those who are wronged, 
whatever is their abstract right; but as though with 
this. He would give nothing but that bare right to him 
who mercilessly rejects the suit of another. Man can 
for^ve the offence which has been committed against 
himself. For thus far, at least, he still retains that 
image of God in which he was created. But if he in- 
sists on his literal due from his neighbor, he cannot 



332 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

expect consideration from another, and least of all 
from Him who knows how imperfect has been the 
obedience of His creatures, and how unwarrantable it 
is for man to be implacable, when he most needs such 
forgiveness himself. To be unmerciftil and unforgiving 
is to deny the Fatherhood of God, and to look on Him 
only as a Judge. " To him," says the Apostle James, 
— speaking in the spirit of the Hebrew prophet, and as 
the servant of Christ, — " who does no mercy shall be 
pitiless judgment given ; mercy has higher claims than 
judgment. " 

It is inevitable, in so far as a belief in God and in 
His Providence exists, that rehgion should develop, to 
a greater or less extent, such conceptions of the rela- 
tion in which man stands to the Maker, the Judge, 
the Father, as have been stated above. The Law must 
be stricter and more rigorous than that which human 
society can enact, the Lawgiver must take clearer 
coo^nizance of ficts and motives than human leodslation 
can achieve or attempt. The justice of the All-wise 
will be tempered with mercy. On the other hand, as 
no injury can, except by a figure of speech, be put on 
the Almighty, but only on those who are equally the 
objects of His Providence and Love, the mercy which 
He shows can be anticipated by forgiveness, granted on 
the part of those who are wronged, and can only be 
obtained on the condition that the penitent is willing 
to accord the pardon which he begs for. And, in a 
more or less perfect form, these rehgious tenets char- 
acterize all theological systems which have ever con- 



THE PAULINE DOCTRINE OF SIN. 333 

tamed a just conception of the Deity. The forgiveness 
of injuries is no peculiar maxim of Christian ethics. It 
is Jewish, Zoroastrian, Pythagorean, Platonic, Stoic. 
So is the great defensive rule of social morality — that 
of doing as we would be done by. It is not without 
reason that the Psalmist — having averred that the 
fool hath said in his heart. There is no God — portrays 
the converse of that picture which a lively conscience 
of God's presence exhibits, narrates the deeds of those 
who deny His Providence and Justice, and accounts 
for that social panic, that fear where no fear is, which 
follows on the extinction of the religious sense — the 
absence of God's fear before men's eyes. 

The Epistle to the Romans contains the Pauline 
doctrine of sin. The passage just referred to, or 
rather two passages grouped together from the Psalms 
— the fourteenth and the fifty-third — are cited in 
order to prove the universality of sin. The narrative 
of the fall of Adam is made the basis of a similar 
generalization. Death was the penalty annexed to the 
offence committed in the garden, death has been the 
lot of humanity ever since, and, therefore, the sin of 
the first progenitor of mankind was propagated through 
his offspring. This position, on which St. Paul insists 
more than once, was derived from the teaching of 
the Rabbis. The facts of the Mosaic cosmogony were 
admitted, and the explanation was obvious and con- 
venient. It is to be observed, however, that the 
derived sin of Adam's descendants was inferred from 
the moitality of man's body, — the dogma of trans- 
mitted ouilt was a a, loss. 



334 PAUL OF TABS US. 

That the Apostle fully believed in the sufficiency of 
his explanation as to the origin of moral evil will be 
readily allowed. That he quoted the passages from 
the Septuagint — in which David is celebrating some 
victory over his foreign and domestic enemies, and 
contrasting their evil doings with the character of the 
generation of the righteous, — as though it were a 
theological declaration about the universal depravity 
of mankind, and that he made the quotation in perfect 
good faith need not be doubted. The allegorical 
interpretation of Scripture was so customary among 
the Jews of the Pauline era, and was adopted so 
naturally by Christian teachers, that we need not be 
surprised at the citation of this passage, in which a 
slight analogy is taken to be a conclusive proof. A 
glance, indeed, will show that David did not mean to 
affiiTu, in the passages quoted, the universal depravity 
of man's nature, still less to apply these words to those 
who are under the Law, as the Apostle implies that 
he does. It is possible that he was thinking of his 
rebellious son and the associates of his revolt ; but, it 
is far more likely that, when he speaks of the bones of 
them that besieged Zion, he had before him Chemosh, 
or Milcom, or Moloch, — the abomination of the nations 
round about ; whose worship the Israelite contemptu- 
ously, perhaps justly, called fornication; and who 
had been eating up Israel as though they were eating 
bread. 

And, similarly, it may be proved that the varieties 
of the human race cannot be referred to a common 



HISTORICAL ORIGIN OF SIN. 335 

origin ; that the history of humanity is not retrogres- 
sion from a pure exemplar, but progress from compar- 
ative or actual barbarism; that the primeval Adam, 
at least of many races, was no dweller in a Paradise, 
who talked with God, and had the gift, or, at least, the 
prospect of immortal life, but a savage who slowly 
elaborated the arts of domestic life, who maintained a' 
warfare against wild beasts, and who lived at so 
remote a period, that many species of animals had dis- 
appeared since he first walked on the earth. If such 
a theory can be maintained, there is no escape from 
one of two alternatives. Either the man and woman 
of the Mosaic account are the progenitors of one 
family of mankind, and, therefore, have transmitted 
their sin and their hope to those only who have sprung 
from them ; or the story of Adam and Eve is one of 
those allegories in which men have always delighted, 
and by which they have wished to express the con- 
viction, that the facts of later social life represent a 
decline from primeval purity, — just as the Greeks 
consoled themselves in the depravity and violence of 
their own epoch with the dream of a golden age, wdth 
a Hyperborean felicity, with the islands of the blest, 
with the garden of golden fruit, and similar schemes 
of an imagination which protests against the evil 
which it sees, but cannot or ^vi[\ not cure. Under 
neither explanation, however, can the narrative of the 
garden be an exposition of the origin of evil. 

The historical origin of sin, vice, infirmity of pur- 
pose, selfishness, sensuality, is not so important a 



336 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

matter for consideration as the fact that these things 
are. The discovery and application of remedies for 
those evils is a problem, pending the solution of which 
all creation groans and travails in pain. Every re- 
ligion which contains in itself a spark of the Divine 
fire professes to have discovered a more or less effect- 
ual remedy for such mischiefs. Every religion which 
has actually found out some aid towards the moral 
progress of mankind has done its part in the general 
scheme of social regeneration. It is matter of very 
little consequence whether this or that teacher has 
accurately traced out the sources of the disorder which 
he has learnt to rectify. It is enough to cast out 
devils in the name of Christ. In the treatment of 
disease, — moral no less than physical, — it is important 
to know the cause of the sickness only when the cause 
and effect exist and cease to exist simultaneously. 
When the infection has been taken, it is of very httle 
importance to the patient or the physician to be able 
to identify the origin of the malady. In such a crisis, 
the first thing which has to be considered is the treat- 
ment. Nay, w^hen the symptoms are gi-ave, and the 
situation is urgent, it is worse than a waste of labor 
to speculate on the source of the complaint — to 
wrangle over theories, and to abstain from prompt and 
decisive action. 

St. Paul thinks that he has the Spirit of God. He 
says so modestly, and if ever man could say it, he says 
so truly. If life and labor such as his were, — if in- 
tense activity, and equally intense love, such as con- 



WHAT CONSERVES SOCIETY BEST. 33T 

stituted his very nature, — were delusions, he might 
well call himself of all men most miserable ; we might 
despair of the human race, and assert that the heaviest 
curse which has fallen on mankind is that gift — suici- 
dal, as we should then justly call it — of a disinterested 
and self-sacrificing sense of duty. If it be the case 
that they who have diligently set themselves to profit 
by the order of society and the convictions of others, 
in^ order to gather together the means of rank, wealth, 
pleasure, ease, are the equals or superiors of those 
who have slighted such advantages, in order that they 
may efiect a permanent improvement in the lot of 
their fellow-men, — if a refined and temperate selfish- 
ness, a shrewd, cold prudence, is as good an end of 
human life as a lofty perseverance after great and gen- 
erous objects, no delusion can be more gross than 
Christianity. But, it must be added, that the awak- 
ening from this delusion would arrest civilization, and 
rapidly drive men back to savagery. For a time, 
indeed, power might ally itself with intelligence, and 
might oppress mankind. But very speedily every 
man's hand would be against his fellow-man, and the 
sneer of the sophist would become the law of nature. 
Justice would be the interest of the strongest, and 
internecine war the unchanging lot of humanity. 

There is an inveterate difficulty in believing that 
the Apostle is the mouth-piece of a positive revelation. 
If there is reason to know that he misquotes, or mis- 
understands tlie authority to which he appeals, or that 
the historical statement to which he refers, in order to 
16 V 



338 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

substantiate Ms generalization, is no fact at all, but an 
apologue or a parable, we may, we ought to decline 
acceptance of the proof. His conclusions may be true, 
though his premises may be irrelevant or false. When 
a conclusion is certified by experience, formal and pre- 
cise proof is not always necessary in order to secure 
conviction, just as it is not always possible. Such a 
condition is frequent in moral science, — all but uni- 
versal in the case of religious conviction. And so it 
does not follow that the Pauline conclusion is false 
because the Apostle's premises are irrelevant. The 
words of the Psalmist may not mean that human 
nature is universally corrupt, — tlie derivation of sin 
from the taint of Adam's transgression may be a 
paradox, as it certainly seems to be at variance with 
what we believe of the Divine justice; but man's 
nature may yet be universally corrupt, — man may be 
naturally inclined to evil, — we may have no truth in 
us, and deceive ourselves if we say that we have no 
sin; we may still need a Teacher, a Saviour, a Re- 
deemer. St. John is as powerful a witness to the sin- 
fulness of man as St. Paul is, though he does not ascribe 
this infirmity to the hereditary taint of descent from 
a disobedient ancestor. 

It matters nothing whether man has sprung from a 
savage ancestry, the mental powers of which were 
hardly higher than those of the other animals with 
whom the primeval, barbarian herded, or whether he 
is the defaced copy of a Divine Exemplar. The fact 
of interest is that he is now liable to impulses which, 



SECULAR AND RELIGIOUS SOCIALISM. 339 

if unrestrained, would make instant havoc of society, 
and which are therefore partly coerced by law, partly 
by custom, partly, and most of all, by the religious 
sense. Take away the influence which the latter ex- 
ercises, — and it appears that no substitute can be 
found for it, — and it seems inevitabl-e, either that 
social forces, which are nearly equal in strength, will 
engage in the fiercest struggle for supremacy, or that 
power will create a rigorous and jealous despotism, 
under which the ruler and his instruments need only 
to be active and cunning, and the people will be per- 
manently sunk in ignorance and degradation. 

Philosophers and publicists have frequently busied 
themselves with the project of constructing a common 
life for voluntary associations; but they have never 
been able to discover any thing which shall be strong 
enousfh to make these associations cohere tog^ether. 
There are no secular Coenobites. Religious associa- 
tions, on the other hand, have existed in plenty, and 
have had a very tenacious vitality. The apostolic 
college at Jerusalem is the earliest Christian exemplar. 
The French missionaries found monasteries in abun- 
dance through central Asia, among the Buddhists. In 
the United States there are several communities of 
Coenobites. So vast is that country, and so little is 
any attrition of sects felt in the rural districts of the 
Union, that these social experiments .have a fairer 
chance of success and endurance in America than they 
would have elsewhere. But every one of these com- 
munistic schemes is founded on a relifjious basis — 



340 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

even when, as is charged against some of them, the 
practice of the community is licentious. A rehgion 
may consist of little more than dogma, or it may 
ignore dogmas and court asceticism, or it may be 
neither dogmatic nor ascetic, but demand an active 
charity and a pure heart. Each of these religions has 
its schedule of offences. In the first the sin is called 
heresy; in the. second it is called worldliness ; in the 
third it is a breach of the inner law, which God has 
ordained and conscience sanctioned. In each case it 
is supposed that the commission of the sin secludes 
the man who commits it from his Maker, leaves him to 
the anger of the Judge, excludes him from the love of 
the Father, cuts him off from illumination and pardon. 
An offence against religion is called a sin. The word 
commonly used for this ^tate is one which expresses an 
error, mistake, misconception, less culjDable than delib- 
erate or wanton wickedness, but blameworthy because 
care and forethought would have prevented its occur- 
rence. The sinner is one who has missed his way, 
whose path has been dark, and who has therefore 
strayed from it. The word suggests excuse, pardon, 
reconcihation ; is contrasted with another state in 
which the light is deliberately put' out; in which the 
offence is wilful, daring, insolent ; in which the man is 
lawless or unjust. Thus, the synoptic gospels affimi 
that there is a sin against the Holy Ghost, — against 
that Power which enlightens, strengthens, teaches men. 
The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews contemplates 
the case of those who have been enlightened and have 



DEFINITIONS OF SIN. 341 

repudiated the gift, in language containing the strong- 
est phrases of nascent Gnosticism, the phraseology of 
the Alexandrian Theosophists. The beloved disciple 
declares that there is a sin unto death. Paul speaks of 
the rejected, those who fail on being tested ; or, as our 
version gives it, though with a force which familiarity 
has weakened, the cast-away, — the vessels which the 
potter has framed and found to be unsound or unser- 
viceable. But, generally, the language of the New 
Testament is merciful towards sin, excluding no one 
from penitence and pardon. "This is good and ap- 
proved before God our Saviour, who wills that all men 
should be saved and arrive at an insight into the truth," 
says the Apostle in the first letter to Timothy. The 
charity of Christ is universal, the love of God is un- 
bounded, the door to repentance is open, and the Gos- 
pel of the New Covenant is as merciful as the teaching 
of the Prophets. 

As religion leans to the contemplative, the ascetic, or 
the practical consequence of illumination or regenera- 
tion, so it stigmatizes as sin a departure from the rule 
of the life which it has inculcated. It has happened 
that the first of these forms of religious opinion has 
exercised so energetic an influence, that conformity to 
written creeds is treated as the highest duty, divergence 
from them as the most grievous sin. The Roman 
Church, for example, has multiplied the "articles of 
faith," and has uttered its anathema against those who 
decline to accept any of its dogmas. It is probable 
that the terrors of this denunciation have been weak- 



342 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

ened, but there are millions of professed Cliristians to 
whose conscience doctrinal heresy is the highest crime 
that can be committed against the Majesty of God. 
Perhaps there has been no country where this dread of 
unbelief has been more general than in Spain. Here 
the suspicion of heresy was more feared than the repu- 
tation of any moral depravity. So there are parts of 
Italy, where people have united the profession of brig- 
andage with the most scrupulous and sincere ortho- 
doxy. ^It is obvious that the most lively hoiTor at the 
imputation of unsound opinion on theological topics is 
quite compatible with the utter absence of all the other 
elements of the religious life, and that the strictest, the 
most heartfelt profession of a creed is no guarantee of 
a single Christian virtue. 

To any one who considers how different are the 
capacities of men for comprehending facts and reason- 
ing out conclusions, how difficult it must be to form 
any comprehension whatever of those remote and ex- 
alted conceptions which theology attempts to define 
and limit, — how much less responsible, on the plainest 
principles of justice, a man must be for an error of 
judgment or opinion, than he is for an offence against 
virtue or morality, — it must seem strange that false 
opinion has been treated as sin. Hitherto, indeed, old 
and new forms of religious organization have been at 
one on this point, and have held the non-acceptance of 
a tenet as a criminal act, as one which should be visited 
with social or even legal penalties. 

They have even asserted, perhaps in justification of 



MORAL AND DOCTRINAL ORTHODOXY. 343 

their practice, tliat theological error is the consequence 
of moral guilt. But men have constantly lived in ac- 
cordance with the highest and purest moral virtue, 
while they have been sceptical or heterodox on specula- 
tive questions. And conversely, men whose orthodoxy 
has been unimpeached have often set an evil example 
of conduct, have allowed their lives to belie their pro- 
fession, have even attempted a compromise, under the 
terms of which strictness of conformity is made to com- 
pensate for laxity of practice. Such persons have fre- 
quently been treated with the greatest leniency by 
those who agree with them in opinion. But if theolog- 
ical error were the cause of vice, it ought to follow 
that the possession of theological truth must be a 
guarantee of holiness. 

There are opinions, positively entertained, which are 
immoral in their tendency. Any opinion, for example, 
which separates a man from those relations to God, 
which are at once the pledge of his trust in God, 
and which exact a constant watchfulness over life or 
action; any tenet which would induce a man to sub- 
stitute any other agency than his own conscience, or 
his own duty, in the satisfaction of a moral obligation, 
— is in itself immoral. The guide may be a Pharisee, 
and the blind may lead the blind; the ceremonial 
need not purify the heart, but may leave the man a 
whited sepulchre. 

There is, however, a serious danger involved in the 
doctiine that the acceptance of certain definitions and 
tenets is the necessary foundation of the Christian 



344 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

character. What if overmastering doubts, honest dis- 
abilities of judgment, make men decline to admit cer- 
tain statements, or foimulas, or presumed facts ? What 
if such doubts and difficulties are met by stern declara- 
tions and angry anathemas ? Is it not possible to con- 
ceive that men may be alienated from a beneficent 
religion by the harshness of its advocates ? Has it not, 
unhappily, been the case that Christianity has been 
rendered distasteful to many by the intemperate sever- 
ity of those who pretend to expound it ? 

The time must come in which the teaching of Chris- 
tianity — if it is to retain its hold on the hearts of men 
— must ignore diiferences of opinion, or, in other words, 
must accept the fact that while men agi'ee closely on 
the ground of common duty and common action, and 
are willing, nay anxious, to make duty more stringent 
and action more heroic, they cannot all be made to 
think alike. When this teaching is current, the reunion 
of Christianity becomes possible, because the teacher 
has reverted to the examples which the Founder of the 
faith has given. To have the mind of Christ, it is not 
necessary to busy one's self with abstract and dark sj^ec- 
ulations ; but it is necessary for each to do the work 
which God has given him to do, and thereafter commit 
one's self to Him who judges righteously. To forget the 
mind of Christ, and abandon the continuity of that 
great office which His life, and the life of those who 
conformed to Him, began, in the vain struggle after 
effecting a uniformity of opinion, is to nail Him anew 
to His cross, and then to cast lots for His gannent. 



THE ASCETIC TEMPER — ITS EVILS. 345 

The faith which removes mountains is not that which 
creates stumbling-blocks, but it is the zeal which is un- 
sparing of itself, and gentle to others, the love which 
Paul commends as the greatest and most enduring of 
the Christian graces. 

That morbid asceticism which believed that motive- 
less and inactive self-torture was the highest form of 
the religious life, Avhich made austerity a virtue, and 
the enjoyment of God's blessings a sin, has probably 
passed away for ever. This extravagant theory of 
perfection was imported into Christianity, it would 
seem, from Buddhism, through the imitation of those 
devotees who, before the Christian era, congregated 
in the deserts of Lower Egypt. It is difficult for us to 
conceive the process- by which men, who voluntarily 
lived a brutish life in caves, or passed their existence 
on lofty pillars, or went through sharp and meaningless 
penances, came to imagine that their practice was the 
truest service that could be rendered to God, and that 
they were the peculiar favorites of Heaven. 

This strange opinion, derived, it is believed, from the 
practice of rival devotees in the Brahman and Buddhist 
creeds, once completely permeated Christianity. It 
formed the leading characteristic of many religious or- 
ders. It still lingers among the more rigid sectaries 
of the Roman Church, its Carthusians and Trappists. 
It has peculiar attractions to those who have lived a 
while in reckless pleasure. It is really akin to thai 
ManichaBan doctrine, which, holding that matter is evil, 
has divided creation between a beneficent God and a 
15* 



346 PAUL OF TARSUS, 

malignant demon, and assigned the largest and most 
important share to the latter. 

In a modified form, it has developed that unhealthy 
anxiety about personal salvation which has tormented 
so many good men, — has cast a blight on their lives, 
has benumbed their energies, has crippled their useful- 
ness. There is no sadder sight than that of a tender 
and loving nature, which, giving itself up to this dread 
of God. thereby dishonors His love, and doubts His 
mercy ; which creates for itself a valley of the shadow 
of death, a vale of misery ; which brings the terrors of 
Sinai into the region of the Gospel. But Christianity 
has no claim on society — does no service to mankind, 
if it is to be considered only as the machinery for sav- 
ing the individual soul, least of all if that soul is only 
to be saved by an agony of dread. Christ did not live 
to save men but man. They who are Christ's have the 
same purpose before them, and any anxiety about their 
personal safety is supei-fluous and debasing. 

Christianity demands that man should do good to 
man for God's sake, and for no other object besides. 
The opportunities are multiform ; the claim on the indi- 
vidual is perpetual. To su'ch an extent only as is 
needed for the satisfaction of this great function, does 
religious duty assume the ascetic spirit. It is possible, 
when men resolve on such an employment of then- 
powers, that they have to forego not only the regular 
reward of their labors, but the legitimate enjoyments 
of life. Christ, who expressly repudiated the ascetic 
life in its mildest form, — drawing a contrast between 



TRAITS OF THE CHRISTIAN TEMPER. 347 

Plis own practice and that of the Baptist, — contem- 
plates the case of the man who sacrifices domestic 
happiness to a high sense of public duty. St. Paul 
takes credit for the self-denial with which he adopted 
celibacy, or at least suspended that companionship 
which he considered honorable and pure. He even 
urges, in his anxiety to detach his followers from the 
temporary dangers of their calling, and to accustom 
them to the contemplation of Christ's immediate ad- 
vent to judgment, that they should be celibates also. 
James, the head of the communist church at Jeru- 
salem, inveighs against the rich, only as forgetful of 
duty and sunk in sensuality. Now, it is undoubtedly 
the office of Christian men to avoid temptation, and to 
keep their passions, appetites, impulses, in check. The 
favorite metaphor of St. Paul is that of the palaestra. 
He " keeps under " his body, — the word being equiv- 
alent to that which Horace employs when he speaks 
of Sybaris as bruised by the exercise of the gym- 
nasium. The Christian, to use a modern phrase, is 
always in training — is under a permanent regimen 
and diet. 

The world owes every thing to voluntary labor. The 
energy which pursues knowledge for no material 
profit, and which eagerly imparts it ; the true pleasure 
which is felt at conferring lasting and general benefits ; 
the temper which gains the highest satisfaction by 
knowing that the cause of humanity, civilization, prog- 
ress, has made a firm advance by reason of some act 
which has strengthened and assisted them ; the addi- 



348 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

tion to the knowledge which lightens the sorrows of 
mankind, and extends the blessings of an all-wise 
Providence to the largest possible number of His creat- 
ures, and therefore to brutes ; the self-devotion which 
visits the sick, aids the poor, builds and sustains school, 
hospital, and a pure Church : the courage and gentle- 
ness which check oppression and disarm anger; the 
tenderness which tames savage nations, and reclaims 
desperate, but not impenitent vice, speaking peace and 
pardon to them who are fallen, but not incurable ; the 
love which wins the young, and thereby confers the 
most exquisite pleasure on those who gain the confi- 
dence and receive the caresses of childhood, — are ex- 
amples of the Christian temper, imitations of Him who 
bade little children run to His arms, and who, on the 
eve of His Passion, with the sad preseotiment of His 
own destiny, and the sadder sense of the ruin which 
brooded over the beloved city, would still have gathered 
her people to Him, as a hen gathereth her chickens 
under her wings. 

The greatest victory, however, which the spirit of 
Christianity achieves is obtained when it permeates the 
mind of the statesman. In the days wken the Gospel 
was first preached there was no opportunity for sketch- 
ing the career of such a man, and the Scriptures of the 
Gospel do not portray undeveloped characters. But 
the statesman of the divine commonwealth is contained, 
by implication, in those descriptions of Chiistian worthi- 
ness which Paul loves to draw. To win assent by 
patient and persistent vindication of the truth, to wait 



THE CHRISTIAN STATESMAN. 349 

for neither honor nor reward, to use power wisely, 
never desiring it and never wasting it, to bear miscon- 
struction patiently, and to learn vigilance and forbear- 
ance fi-om the bitterness of hostile criticism, to outlive 
calumny by perfect simplicity and candor, to administer 
afiim-s justly, and to cherish every force by which social 
morality and mutual good-will may be strengthened 
and made pennanent, to make no compromise between 
ambition and honor, to be unmoved and just amid the 
din of rival sects and clashing interests, to defer not for 
an instant to the selfish clamor of a factious mob, 
whether the mob be one of grandees or peasants, of 
partisans or opponents, to withstand the subtlest of all 
temptations, the gratification of a sordid patriotism, the 
flattery of a selfish nationality, to be prudent, incor- 
ruptible, alert, — these are some of the qualities of a 
Christian statesman. A few men have been such ex- 
amples, and they have been the apostles of a Divine 
wisdom, have left ineffaceable traces on the history of 
mankind, have brought back on the scarred and dis- 
torted visage of humanity some features to the likeness 
of God. Man can give them no reward for their bene- 
fits; the recompense of their labor is laid up in the 
treasury of God. Man could not stimulate them to 
such efforts and such sacrifices as they make. It is the 
Spirit of God which dwells within them, and by which 
they follow the gi-eat Captain of man's salvation, like 
Him being made perfect by suffering. 

The man who counselled the avoidance of doubtful 
questions in the reception of members into the Christian 



.350 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

brotherhood, and who spoke contemptuously of all as- 
cetics, whether they were the emissaries who unset- 
tled the Galatians, or the punctilious forerunners of 
Gnostic idealism, was not likely to have taken part in 
those theories which have made conformity in religious 
opinion the most essential feature in the Christian char- 
acter, or to have discoveredrany special sanctity in un- 
meaning austerities. According to the simple creed of 
the Apostolic age, there is one God. This is the con- 
tribution of pure Judaism to the Christian Church. 
There is one Christ, Jesus of Nazareth. This Man died 
and rose again. He is the Power of God, the Word of 
God, the Redeemer of mankind, the present Saviour, 
the perfect Example, the future Judge. In Him, 
through Him, for Him we live, work, suffer, hope. 
This, St. Paul could say, is my gospel, and from this 
teaching I derive my religion. There are other forms 
in which tlie Gospel is preached, but if they preach the 
Spirit of Christ, I am indifferent to variations in the 
manner, and heed not hostility to myself. "Some, 
indeed," says he in one of his last letters, "-preach 
Christ enviously and contentiously, some generously. 
They who do it contentiously, have no pure purpose, 
for they think that they will make my chains gall me 
the more. They who do it lovingly, know that I live 
in prison to defend the Gospel. But what of this ? 
In every w^ay — be it with a sinister or an honest pur- 
pose — Christ is announced, and this is and shall be 
matter of congratulation to me." What a comment on 
the rivalry of sects ! How naturally does the writer go 



PAUL'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS HERESY. 851 

on to warn his beloved Philippians against cavilling 
and logomachies — the perennial curse of Christen- 
dom. 

The danger of doctrinal sin is made of little account 
in the Pauline religion. There are traces, indeed, of 
the idea, that misapprehension as to theological tenets 
is an offence, or, at least, a danger. There were men, 
according to the second pastoral epistle, who enter- 
tained views about the resurrection, which contravened 
the habitual teaching of the Apostle. There were men 
whom the Apostle anathematized in his wrath, because 
they renewed the yoke of Judaism, and fi'ightened the 
Gentiles into the acceptance of superfluous observances. 
There were conceited visionaries, who prided them- 
selves on a sj^ecial illumination, on a knowledge which 
puffed them up, who were given over to the deadly 
delusion of spiritual pride, the heretical men who were 
to be twice warned and then avoided. But, of the 
later doctrine which harsh creeds have engendered — 
that the non-acceptance of ecclesiastical definitions is 
a sin against God, a wicked error, an act of treason 
against the Divine majesty — there is no trace. The 
common sense and sagacity of the Apostle would have 
scouted the idea of those jurists, who, having recognized 
the conception of conspiracy, rebellion, treason against 
the human ruler, have applied it to those who will not, 
or cannot, accept the precedents of successful polemics. 
Men have asserted, that the result of an attempt to de- 
fine the transcendental mysteries of Divine Providence 
ought to be as plain to ordinary minds as those human 



352 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

laws are which may be unjust, but are certainly intelli- 
gible, and they have added to this fallacy another 
which is still more gross. They have affected to con- 
sider that a misapprehension of the Divine nature is. the 
same sort of offence as that which seeks to overthrow 
the authority of a secular ruler, who is a man as much 
as the malcontents are ; and that hesitation as to allow- 
ing some of the attributes which they assign to an om- 
nipotent God is identical with the ciime of seeking to 
destroy a government by violence or fraud, of subvert- 
ing a power which cannot exist and continue without 
weapons of defence. Alas, to be ignorant of His benef- 
icence and justice, to hve without knowledge of Him., 
is no matter for anger, but occasion for pity, — for that 
compassion which the strong should feel towards those 
who are weak; the wise for those who are ignorant; 
the rich for those who are poor ; the child whose father 
and mother love him, and whose home is cheerful and 
happy, for the fatherless, the orj)han, the destitute, the 
homeless; the man of strong, clear, active mind, for 
the hypochondriac who suffers under baseless illusions. 
But sometimes the armor of confident assertion is the 
cloak of doubt. Shall we admire or pity the audacity 
which utters the famous paradox of TertulHan, — 
"Credo quia impossibile est"? 

For the sin of the ascetic, Paul mentions to dismiss it 
with disdain. It was no part of this Apostle's theory 
that his converts should go out of the world, — that 
they should be sour, mortified, recluse. The advice 
which he gives, and of which so much has been made, 



THE SIN HE DENOUNCED. 353 

as to marringe, is given for temporary and special rea- 
sons. Elsewhere, he commends the connubial state, 
and reckons among the signs of the latter times, — of 
the days of wandering spirits, and the teachings of 
devils, — the repudiation of marriage and those aliment- 
ary restrictions which ascetics have always insisted on. 
There is, it may be, some benefit in the subjection of 
the body to discipline ; but piety, religion, is of univer- 
sal benefit, for it conveys with itself the promises of the 
present and of the future life. 

It remains, then, that the sin which the Aj^ostle de- 
nounced, and against which he uttered his warnings, 
was that against the Moral Law, — such sin as the Jew- 
ish prophets condemned, and made the object of God's 
wrath, — and, in particular, the sins of sensuality and 
greed, the sins of a reprobate intellect. The details of 
such a depravity are described in the first chapter of 
the Epistle to the Romans, where, in accordance with 
the teaching of the Hebrew jurists, the tendency to 
these offences is connected with ignorance of the Being 
and Providence of God, — with the absence of the 
religious sense, — with the folly, as David says, w^iich 
denies God in the heart. So, again, it is the flesh 
against the spirit, — the animal impulse of man contra- 
vening and degrading the diviner element, — which 
leads to the sin which dishonors man. In one remark- 
able passage, the Apostle compares the logical act of 
appetite with the logical act of the nobler nature of the 
spirit, and notes their antagonism, — his contrast being 
probably suggested by the familiar language of Aryan 



354 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

dualism. Sin, then, is partly the consequence of un- 
worthy conceptions of God, partly a yielding to the 
temptation which is perpetually recurring in the body 
of this death, in the facile obedience to an imperious 
law which campaigns against the law of my intellect 
(the origin, according to Aristotle, of all law), and 
which takes me captive to itself, — to the law of sin 
which exists in my body, and in its passions. 

This contest between appetite and reason, between 
the flesh and the spirit, is elaborated in the Epistle 
to the Galatians. "Walk by the spiiit, and you will 
not satisfy the desii*e of the flesh. The flesh has its 
impulses which would subdue the spirit, — the spiiit 
those which would subdue the flesh. These contravene 
one another, and so you do what you do not wish to do. 
If ye are led by the spirit, you are not subject to a 
law ; " or, as is explained a little afterwards, when the 
Apostle has sketched the ^dces and virtues of those 
contrasted forces, "there is no law against those who 
practise the latter." Law, be it ceremonial or munici- 
pal, is directed against those who break it, and has no 
practical existence to them who are exempted from 
obedience to a ceremonial code, or whose conduct is 
such that they do not incur the penalties of municipal 
legislation. 

Whenever the Apostle utters his warning against 
sin, and enumerates its various phases, he invariably 
reckons unchastity as the greatest or most prominent of 
vices. The extraordinary "impurity of social life among 
Romans, Greeks, Syrians, — the shamelessness with 



HIS WARNING AGAINST UNCBASTITY. 355 

which licentiousness was practised and avowed, — may 
have induced the Apostle to lay great stress on the 
necessity for purity among his converts. In the Epistle 
to the Corinthians he speaks of incontinence as specially 
degrading. In that to the Thessalonians he urges the 
necessity of keeping the body pure, in contrast to Gen- 
tile practice. But, apart from the immediate effect of 
this particular vice, the Apostle knew what were the 
associations of ancient prostitution. The practice was 
part of the system of nature-worship. Antioch, where 
St. Paul resided so long, was notorious for its dissolute- 
ness, for the openness with which wantons were recog- 
nized and patronized. In Corinth, Paphos, and a 
hundred other cities, prostitution was considered, not 
merely — as some of our publicists have reckoned it — 
a social necessity, but a culte^ an act of worship. The 
earlier Scriptures of the Old Testament allude to the 
women who lived near the precinct of some idol shrine. 
The story of Israel and Moab bears testimony to the 
close connection between licentiousness and idolatry. 
For this reason, fornication is commonly used in the 
Old Testament as a synonyme for idolatry, and some- 
times in the New, as for example in the Revelation. 
As the Jewish creed grew more strictly monotheistic, it 
proscribed with peculiar energy any practice which was 
associated with that nature-worship which it detested 
and despised. 

To the moralist, sin is vice, — which, as far as its 
influence extends, wrecks society. Violence, fraud, 
rapine, endanger the institution of property; licen- 



356 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

tiousness insults the sacredness of home, the dignity of 
woman, the instincts of paternal fondness and care. It 
is not because the effects of un chastity are less mis- 
chievous than those of lawlessness, that criminal law 
does not take cognizance of, or punish the former, but 
because the machinery of repression or punishment is 
less easy. No civilized community neglects, however 
free it leaves the Press, to punish those who sell in- 
decent or immojal books, pictures, and the like. Nor, 
were it possible or convenient to check the vice to 
which these publications pander, in the interest of 
society, is there any doubt that a legislature might and 
would use the forces at its control in order to purify, as 
it does to protect society. 

The effect of sin on the individual is, that it deadens 
the religious sense. It perverts the sight of God, in- 
ducing the man to frame such notions of the Deity as 
characterized the nature-worship of Greek, Roman, and 
Syrian. God, argues the Apostle, had made Himself 
known, — the invisible verity being made intelligible 
by the analogy of the visible creation ; as, for example, 
the eternal power and divine majesty of the Almighty. 
But, though the heathen world knew God, its inhabi- 
tants " gave Ilim not the glory and praise that was His 
due, but argued themselves into folly, so that they were 
darkened in a senseless heart. Calling themselves wise 
they became stolid, and transferred the glory of the 
unchangeable God to some image of changeable man, 
or to that of bird, beast, or reptile. " Hence, he goes 
on to infer, their vices, — on which he dwells with 



FAITH AND PRACTICE. 357 

vehement disgust, concludiDg with a description of the 
depravity into which the heathen had fallen, and the 
satisfaction which they felt in their depravity. 

The sight of God which sin perverts, the revelation 
of God's justice which is made in the Gospel, and which 
leads to an ever-increasing trust in God, — that process 
from faith to faith, according to the Hebrew, a formula 
of growing intensity, — is no mere knowledge. Men 
may be acquainted with every thing which has been al- 
leged, proved, accepted, on behalf of a doctrinal system, 
and may acquiesce in every tenet which theologians 
have affirmed, — may be of unimpeached orthodoxy, 
— may dread heresy as though it were some dangerous 
or deadly contagion, — and still be far removed fi-om 
the apostolic sight of God, from the manifestation, the 
revelation, which Paul thought the choicest gift of 
the Gospel which he preached. Nay, a precise ortho- 
doxy may be coupled with those very vices which are 
denounced in the Epistles to the Romans and the Gala- 
tians. The history of Christianity can supply abun- 
dant illustrations of the fact, that no religious system, 
however positive may be its tenets, is any guarantee 
against that laxity of practice which the Apostle speaks 
of as the proof of a reprobate mind, or as the logic of 
the appetite, or as the works of the flesh. Faith, as 
commonly understood, is neither the life of Christ nor 
the sight of God. And, conversely, if the sight of 
God and the life of Christ are the highest hopes and 
the best pattern winch can be before the mind of man, 
it is possible that heresy, free-thought, resolute inquiry 



358 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

into the ground of our belief, may be no bar to the 
imitation of the latter, and the possession of the 
former. The sight of God is not, in the economy of 
Christ's teaching, reserved for the learned theologian, 
but for the pure in heart. In this particular, the Apos- 
tle's doctrine does not swerve from that of the Master. 
Man may become the temple of God, but the building 
must be cleansed for the Divine indwelling. 

In the system of St. Paul, the process of illumination 
and reconciliation, of forgiveness and hope, is simple. 
To trust in Christ, to believe in the mercy of God, is 
sufficient for pardon, is a pledge of grace given, of 
mercy vouchsafed. The symbol of this trust is baptism 
into the name of Christ. The warranty of the hopes 
which baptism affirms is the Passion of Jesus. The 
gospel of the Apostle contains, as has been said, a few 
facts, and one simple act of initiation. IN^othing can be 
more brief than this gospel of doctrine, for it ascribes 
the salvation, the regeneration, the reconciliation of 
man to the sublime self-sacrifice of the risen Christ. It 
is stated in its most succinct form to the Philippian 
gaoler, — " Trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou 
shalt be safe. " In the symbolism of the Alexandrian 
gloss on the Jewish covenant, as expounded in the 
Epistle to the Hebrews ; before Christ came there was 
a vail shutting men out from the Shekinah. The 
proof that God was there was afforded by the occa- 
sional entrance of a Jewish priest. He came and the 
vail was for ever taken away. Every one has a right to 
enter now. Salvation is no longer the heritage of a race, 



TEE RELIGIOUS LIFE A GROWTH. 359 

it is the right of all the families of the earth. Eagerly 
accei^ting the universality of the Saviour's mission, the 
apostles, who treated Christianity in a catholic spirit, 
were satisfied of the fact that He has invited all men 
to the mercy of God, and that the Covenant of Abra- 
ham is extended to the whole human race. 

But when the convert is admitted to the Gospel, the 
work of gi'ace commences. The change of conversion 
is vast, — it is no less than a new creation, a new birth. 
But it would be rash, irrational, ruinous to suppose that 
the great woik is achieved in the instant of confession 
and in the avowal of allegiance. The growth of the 
spiritual man, Hke that of the natural man, is from 
babyhood to manhood. The work of the Spirit is 
solid and gradual. Men are builded up, increase, grow 
to a full stature. The life of the Christian man needs 
care and watchfulness, self-denial and self-control. The 
religious change is one of slow accession, of anxious 
and continual watchfulness. It could not be efiected 
but by the aid of the Divine Spirit, — by the presence 
of Christ, — by the perpetual practice of Christian 
duty, — by the concurrence of the will of man, and 
the help of God. " It is not, " says the Apostle, " in my 
presence only, but in my absence still more, that I in- 
sist on the rule that you should accomplish your own 
safety with fear and with anxiety ; for it is God A^hose 
energy effects this in us, that we should will, and we 
should show our energy in the direction which pleases 
Him. " St. Paul uses the same emphatic word — a 
word for which philosophy is indebted to Aristotle — 



360 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

to show that the will of God and the will of man are 
simultaneously operative in the Chiistian soul. Man 
is no inert matter, but without God the man can do 
nothing. 

Each man is aided in this great work of regeneration 
and reconciliation by the Spirit of God, and is thereby 
renewed in the likeness of the Great Father. But sur- 
rounding, combining, pervading, knitting and binding 
together them who are engaged in the labor of the 
spiritual life, is the glorified Christ. He begins the 
redemption of the individual, by constituting these 
units into a Church. Man cannot live in a religious 
solitude, any more than he can dwell apart from the 
social life in which he moves. Christianity is a fellow- 
ship, a company, a community. In this association, no 
man can say to his neighbor, I have no need of thee. 
The aggregate of Christian men is a building, in which 
the individuals are the separate stones, a body of 
which they are the separate members. Christ is the 
life which pervades them, by which they are mutually 
sensitive, by which they exist, move, grow. "We 
have," says St. Paul, " our commonwealth in the heav- 
ens. From this we are expecting our Lord Jesus 
Christ, who will transfigure the body of our humilia- 
tion so that it shall take the shape of the body of His 
glory, in accordance with the living energy by which 
He can marshal all things under Himself. " Then the 
illumination is completed, the pardon is sure, the vic- 
tory is won, the sight of God is everlastingly obtained, 
and the mission of Christ is ended. 



DUTY TO WORK FOR HUMANITY. 361 

That the great scheme of liiiman redemption and 
moral progress should fail for want of advocates who 
can win assent, and gatlier forces for the battle against 
selfishness and sin, is not to be believed. To entertain 
this doubt, to sit with folded arms while the course 
of humanity goes backward, to be dismayed at the 
present, to despair of the future, is the highest offence 
which a clear conception of truth can commit against 
duty. " Woe to me," said Paul, " if I preach not the 
Gospel ; to do it is no cause for boasting ; I must needs 
do it." To decline the work is to sin against God's 
Spirit, to refuse Him who speaks, to enter into the 
peril of that sin which is, above all, inexcusable. And, 
on the other hand, it is certain that they who, for no 
other purpose than that of doing justly, and curing the 
hardships and sorrows of life, seek the good of man, 
will find that they are, though perhaps unconsciously, 
the truest teachers of the Gospel of mercy and grace, 
"though Abraham be ignorant of them, and Israel 
acknowledge them not." 



16 



CHAPTER X. 

'nr^HEY who have busied themselves with the chro- 
-*- nology of the New Testament, generally set a 
period of about thirty-three years between the time at 
which the " young man Saul," eager to vindicate the 
Law, set out for Damascus, and that at which, in his 
last imprisonment, "Paul the aged" declared that "he 
had fought a good fight, had finished his course, and 
was now ready to be offered." This interval had 
been spent in founding and in confirming churches. 
The Acts of the Apostles give us an account of some 
among Paul's many labors. His own Epistles supply us 
with a little further inforaaation. But the narrative in 
the historical work is imjjerfect, even where it professes 
to state the facts, and is silent as to the last years 
of Paul's life. The letters which the Apostle wrote, 
were, we must believe, very numerous. His care of all 
the churches certainly led to frequent communications 
with them, so that, even at a comparatively early 
period in his career, his letters were reckoned to be 
weighty and vigorous. But only a small number of 
these can have been preserved. His labors were inces- 
sant, and he was always seeking to occupy new ground. 
l>ut we hear about none of his doings fi-om the time 



NOT A SECT BUT A COMMONWEALTH. 363 

in -which he rented a house at Rome, — six years before 
the commonly received date of his martyrdom, — to 
the final consummation of his career, when he stood, 
almost friendless, before the judgment-seat of Nero, 
and was looking forward to his rest and his reward. 

During this vigorous life he had preached the Gos- 
pel over the Western world, avoiding only those dis- 
tricts where other men had laid the foundation, and 
renewing by letter, when absent, the teaching which 
he had given by word of mouth. Some of these con- 
gregations must have kept archives, and a few of these 
archives were preserved till such time as the Jewish 
reaction abated, and the surviving writings of Paul 
were sought after, especially by the Latin Christians,, 
in order to develop a systematic theology. It was for 
this object especially that the Epistles of Paul were 
collected, studied, and expounded. But nothing was 
less before the eyes of Paul than the foundation of 
a school. His aim was to establish a divine com- 
monwealth, which, dwelling within the organization of 
the Roman empire, should leaven, purify, and finally 
reform society. The universal acknowledgment of 
Christ is a part of the recompense of His suffering. 
He is to have the homage of every knee and every 
tongue. Such a result, however, is impossible, unless 
the Gospel of Christ is capable of reaching every heart, 
and instructing every mind. Now, nothing is more 
certain to hinder this universality, than a hard and 
dry system of definitions and restrictions. Hence the 
Apostle warns men against these refinements. " Do 



364 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

"what YOU do without them," he says in his last public 
epistle — that to the Philippians. " Have peace among 
one another," he enjoins in his earliest epistle — that to 
the Thessalonians, whom he speaks of as an example 
to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. 

It is plain that justice is the foundation of civil 
society, and that the essence of secular justice is to 
grant each man full fi-eedom to labor, and to secure 
each man that he should enjoy the fruits of his labor, 
subject only to the condition that the exercise of his 
faculties shall not inflict wrong on others. Xor is it 
less plain, that the organization of ci-sdl society is per- 
petually exposed to attack on that side which forms the 
most vital part of its existence, and that it can only by 
perpetual effort ward off force and fraud, the success 
of which is fatal to its being. Government exists to 
do justice, though the decline and fall of nations have 
been due to the fact that the power of government 
has not only not been employed for the primary object 
of its existence, but has perpetually aided rapine and 
oppression. The Platonic Socrates is made to show 
that any theory of government which warps justice, 
even in appearance, to the sustentation of particular 
interests, contains that which is in the end certain to 
effect the dissolution of ci^'il society. 

The profound symjjathy of Paul, which made him 
suffer with any distress, and be indignant at any offence 
which his disciples endured, suggested a striking and 
exact illustration of that distributive justice which con- 
stitutes the key-stone of civilization. He bids men 



THE TRUE THEORY OF SOCIETY. 365 

treat each other as members of the same physical or- 
ganization, urging that injury done to one part induces 
suffering and disease on the whole. Such a theory of 
civil government corresponds with that of those econ- 
omists who allege that, from a material point of view, 
society is best off, not when the largest amount of 
wealth is collected, but when the* largest amount of 
persons live in affluence or comfort by means of labor 
naturally or spontaneously distributed. In the social 
and economical state alike, the spontaneous distribu- 
tion of these benefits, which industry and order collect, 
is of more profound significance than the circumstances 
which attend on their production or collection. In the 
physical body, nature effects this distribution; health 
being the state in which such an equipoise is indicated 
or affected, disease an abnormal growth or a local reple- 
tion. In the Pauline hypothesis of a perfect society, 
the rectification of a wrong is not due to the clamor or 
plaint of that which is immediately distressed, but to 
the sympathy felt by the whole of society towards the 
suffering or the injured part. From St. Paul's point 
of view, a social evil sends a pang through the whole 
body, urging it to take note of the disease and to dis- 
cover the remedy. That the remedy can be found, and 
the disease subdued, he did not for an instant doubt. 
To ignore the disease, or to deny the remedy, is to 
acquiesce in the wreck of humanity. 

Conceive, if you can, a public conscience so keen and 
tender as to be instantly alive to the moral evils which 
corrupt, enfeeble, blemish those powers whose unin- 



366 PAUL OF TABSUS. 

terrupted action designates the vigor of true and un- 
broken progress, and so wise as to instantly busy itself 
with their cure. Imagine men, comprehending that the 
corrective forces of public morality are not, except in- 
directly, concerned with the refomiation of offenders, 
but principally with the purification of mankind itsfelf 
from some taint which it has igTiorantly, wilfully, or 
carelessly contracted. Picture a society busily engaged 
in finding out the means by which poverty, ignorance, 
vice, selfishness, can be chastised or healed, not because 
the victims of those morbid growths are afflicted, but 
because society itself is degraded and dishonored by 
the presence of such calamities, and is therefore rest- 
less till it cures or alleviates them. Whenever man 
begins to purify the society in which he lives, under 
the stimulant of these feelings, and from these motives, 
he begins to construct the divine commonwealth, the 
perfect man, as Paul conceived and expounded it. 
Well would it have been if the reformation of man 
had but been continued in this spirit. The utmost that 
men have done as yet, is to concede a right, perhaps no 
more than the right, of complaint to the sufferer. But 
they will find no remedy for the diseases and depravity 
of social life, till they recognize that the worst part of 
the case is the influence of these malignant growths 
upon the health of humanity itself, and perhaps on its 
very life. 

It is not, therefore, Utopian to project a social system 
which shall be fonned and governed upon the principle 
that vice and misery must be obviated in the interests 



HOLINESS AND HEALTH. 367 

of society itself. Nor is it visionary to conceive a force 
which shall so permeate the common life of men as to 
sustain such a policy when it has once been adopted, 
and, therefore, form an obstacle to the beginning of 
that which demoralizes and degrades all in the deprav- 
ity of a part. We may imagine, with perfect reason- 
ableness, a community where wrong is unknown, and, 
therefore, from wiiich misery is banished. No excel- 
lence, either of the State or of the individual, is im- 
practicable simply because it has hitherto been ideal, 
and has transcended experience. Paul, who avowed 
that man was depraved, contemplated his social per- 
fectibility. 

Now, whether it be that man has departed from the 
pure original in which he was once created — as is 
commonly conceived, — or, that he has, conversely, 
made some progress towards the perfection which may 
be developed in the future by the gradual growth of a 
wise morality, but that he has, historically, no higher 
origin than that of mere animal life, — it is clear, on 
either hypothesis, that society has hardly attempted to 
govern itself on the principle which has been adverted 
to, — that of righting wrong, and checking vice, in 
consideration of its own safety and health. It is also 
clear, that prodigious heroism is needed on the part of 
individuals who, foreseeing the only means by which 
society can be regenerated, seek to grapple with the 
evils whose ultimate consequence must be so disastrous. 
Such persons have been violently crushed, or merci- 
lessly ridiculed at best, have provoked into active antip- 



368 PAUL OF TABS US. 

athy a host of interests, which can easily get credence 
for the fallacy that custom is nature, or that an habitual 
-wrong becomes a prescriptive right. And, even if 
this angry panic of imperilled or alarmed self-interest 
be wanting, there is always the obstacle of inert apathy 
which calls enthusiasm a madness, and would rather 
indolently shut its eyes, than rouse itself to knowl- 
edge and incur the anxieties of resolution. 

Paul was not wanting in courage. Testimony to his 
lofty and unshaken perseverance is to be gathered from 
the sufferings of his life. He is still unshaken as he 
contemplates the apparent failure which saddened his 
retrospect, when, deserted by his friends, he had the 
immediate prospect of a violent death. He had labored 
for more than thirty years, and all those in Asia — 
Asia, which had been the principal scene of his ener- 
gies — were turned away from him, had left him alone. 
His career is an example of the trouble, the animosity, 
the disappointment which attend on those who strive 
to purify the world. The indomitable vitality of a true 
Christianity has rendered it impossible that the career 
of Paul should be a warning. 

But Paul did not, and could not, attempt to grapple 
with society as a whole. As has been several times 
observed, he believed that the world was rapidly ap- 
proaching its dissolution. There was some reason for 
this belief. Mankind has not even yet recovered from 
the desolation which was caused by the Roman Em- 
pire, and from the destruction of ancient civihzarion. 
That empire and that civilization perished by their own 



PAUL'S IDEAL SOCIETY. 369 

vices, by the persistent indifference of the Imperial 
government to all public duty. But, even if the Apos- 
tle had anticipated the duration of the world, he could 
not have directly attempted the task of a social refor- 
mation in the Roman 'Empire. The effort would have 
been a forlorn hope. There was risk enough in the 
indirect attempt, — risk which any but the boldest 
si)irit would have liesitated to run. But to have openly 
defied the power of Roman conservatism, Avould have 
been to provoke instant destruction. And the sacrifice 
would have been as fruitless as that of Savonarola. 

Hence Paul set himself to work to construct a so- 
ciety within a society, which should challenge as lit- 
tle attention as possible, beyond that which would be 
accorded to the blameless and virtuous lives of its 
members. Under circumstances which would not cause 
scandal or retort upon the Christian profession, he 
counsels his disciples to ask no questions for con- 
science' sake, to go into general society. With the 
same purpose he dissuades the believing wife from 
using the right of divorce against the unbelieving hus- 
band, because he anticipates that the latter will be woji 
over to the Gospel by the pure and scrupulous life of 
his wife. The advice marks all the difference between 
a needless and offensive protest against the conduct of 
one's neighbor, and a rigid regimen of one's own life 
and action. If one's own reputation for consistency is 
challenged, the Apostle counsels no reticence, justifies 
no evasion, permits no cowardice. But it is neither 
good manners nor tact to blurt out one's own convic- 

lij * X 



870 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

tions in any company, or, under all circumstances, to 
perpetually protest against whatever one sees and hears. 
It was the \dce of the Christianity which followed on 
the Apostohc Age, or, rather, on the age which fol- 
lowed the revival of Paul's teaching, for the professed 
Christian to court persecution by indiscreet and su- 
perfluous avowals. Hippolytus, in telling us, from the 
Christian side, what was the career of the worthless 
Callistus, — whom the Roman Church subsequently 
elected as its bishop, and has even canonized, — is 
evidence of the eagerness with which an adventurer 
affected martyrdom ; and Lucian, from the heathen side, 
nan-ates, in the history of Peregrinus, how devotees, 
whose reputation was doubtful, wantonly affronted the 
habits of society in the third century after Christ. The 
man who intrudes such crude beliefs on his own age 
becomes the orthodox persecutor of a time when his 
beliefs are accepted. When Gibbon says that the vir- 
tues of a clergy are more dangerous to civil society 
than their vices are, he is thinking of those vu-tues of 
.courage or rashness which simj^ly aid the ambition, or 
affirm the egotism of those who exhibit them. It is 
not clear whether Paul knew the parable about the 
good seed and the tares, but it is clear that his advice 
is quite in accordance with the teaching of Christ. It 
is doubtful whether he had ever heard of those disci- 
ples who wished to call down fire fi'om heaven, but it 
is certain that he was not of that spirit which Christ 
rebuked. It is manifest that he was all things to all 
men, if haply he might gain some, — that he was indif- 



HIS OBJECT SOCIAL REFORMATION. 371 

fcrent to those who preached Christ of contention, pro- 
vided only that Christ was preached, — that he was 
thoroughly of the mind of Christ, who prayed that 
His disciples might — not be taken out of the world, 
but — be preserved from the evil of the world. 

The Gospel which Paul preached was not intended 
to govern men, but to influence them. It was not in- 
tended to confer authority on its teachers, advocates, 
disciples, but to lay duties on them. " The Son of 
Man came not to be the object of service, but to serve, 
and to give His life as a ransom for many," is said by 
Christ when he was enforcing the great tenet of Chris- 
tianity, — that personal power and influence are to be 
dedicated to public service. The object of the Chris- 
tian life is to restore, to regenerate mankind ; not to 
assure the individual of his personal salvation, in the 
first instance at least, but to assist in the reconstruction 
of society. The reward of this labor is an eternal 
identity in the midst of assured felicity, " a place in 
the kingdom of God," a share in that " which has 
been prepared by Christ " on behalf of them who wait 
for Him. And in order that as many persons as pos- 
sible may be included within the number of those who 
have this great object before them, Paul was prepared 
to do away with every hindrance and obstacle in the 
way of union. What the difficulties were with which 
this plan was beset, has been repeatedly stated in these 
pages. They were not obviated during Paul's life ; 
they recur in other forms after the obstacles which 
Paul sought to remove had become unimportant, when 



372 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

the Christian sects reproduced the temper, after aban- 
doning the tenets, of conservative Judaism. The 
Church of Christ is not a society bound together by a 
written constitution, or by a set of formal rules, but 
by the work and the fruit of the Spirit. 

Every epistle of Paul bears witness to his convic- 
tion, that the victory of Christianity is to be found in 
the holiness of its adherents. Having commented on 
the variety of powers and gifts, which the followers of 
the faith may possess and exercise, he lays down in the 
Epistle to the Romans a series of injunctions on the 
details of the Christian life. " Let your love be gen- 
uine. Loathe the evil, cling to the good. Into your 
mutual brotherhood carry the feelings of natural affec- 
tion. Show that grace of courtesy which makes a man 
defer his own dignity to that of his fellow. Be diligent 
in the business on your hands, be eager in the spirit 
of your profession, serve the occasion which lies before 
you, feel joy in your hopes, constancy in your trials, 
confidence in your prayers. Be generous to the wants 
of those who hold your own behef, be eager to practise 
friendly intercourse with all, meet those who harm you 
with kind words, with blessing and not with cursing. 
Give the sympathy of cheerfulness and sorrow to those 
who need it. Have unanimity with one another, avoid 
haughtiness of spirit, condescend to be gentle with 
men of lowly station. Do not think of nothing but 
yourselves, do not retaliate evil. In your general inter- 
course with mankind, be anxious for a good reputation, 
and, if it be possible, for your part, be peaceable. Do 



HIS IDEA OF SECULAR AUTHORITY. 873 

not seek, my beloved, to exact satisfaction, but give 
place to anger, according to the scripture, ' Vengeance 
is mine, I will punish wrong, saith the Lord.' If thine 
enemy, then, hunger, feed him ; if he thirst, give him 
drink, — for by doing so thou shalt heap coals of fire 
on his head. Let not evil-doing vanquish you, but over- 
come it by the good you do." 

Such is a paraphrase of the conduct which Paul com- 
mends as the means by which the Gospel may be ap- 
proved of, and its influence extended. It will be seen 
that these injunctions apply piincipally to the mutual 
intercourse of Christian men, and to their dealings 
with the world around them. They contain the quin- 
tessence of common sense. They are followed by a 
general rule of obedience to secular authority, and an 
acquiescence in the course of Providence, as indicated 
in the existing authority of the civil power. The argu- 
ments on which this acquiescence is based are these : — 
The Apostle urges that there is no reasonable ground 
on which Christian men can be apprehensive of that 
power which the magistrate wields. Law is for the 
wrong-doer, not for the just, whom Law virtually 
respects and defends. Next, the civil administration 
of affairs is part of the moral government of the 
world, and therefore resistance to authority is resistance 
to the implied Providence of God. Lastly, — and this 
is most to the purpose, — the order of the world is 
temporary, and will not long endure. " The night is 
far advanced, the day is near. " In immediate prox- 
imity to that great change which will follow instantly on 



B74 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

the appearance of Christ, it is idle to disturb one's self 
with the merely secular question of human government 
and law. 

Had Paul anticipated the prolonged duration of the 
visible world, had he foreseen that the course of things 
would have remained unchanged for centuries after his 
own life and work were finished, he could not have 
varied the advice which he gives to the Christians 
whom he instructed. Had he contemplated a time in 
which absolutism would give way to popular govern- 
ment, and the Christian man would not only be invited, 
but would be bound to exercise his judgment on ques- 
tions of public policy, and to take part in the administra^ 
tion of aifairs, he would still have counselled obedience 
to law and authority, — even if the authority were self- 
ish and the law unjust. Better have a bad administra- 
tion than anarchy, better partial law than general 
confusion. But to suppose that he would have coun- 
selled indifference, or passive acquiescence in tyranny 
or wrong, is to misapprehend the whole tenor of his 
teaching. Christianity is a perpetual protest against 
evil, whether it be temporal or spiritual, whether it be 
that of ruler or subject, whether it be crime or sin. If 
it have the opportunity of using the force of civil 
authority conjointly with its moral influence to do 
what is just and right, it will not hesitate to employ 
such powers as Providence has bestowed on it. Men 
do not put off their civil duties to the generation in 
which they live, because they profess to believe in a 
religion which promises them certain future benefits. 



PAUL'S PRIDE IN BIS PACE. 375 

They will still " walk in wisdom to those who live with- 
out their action, and will pay the price that it is worth 
for the use of the occasion which lies before them." It 
is true, that the best force which Christianity can 
exercise is to be found in the example of life which the 
Christian spirit affords. But the man who held that 
Christian men shall judge the world, — shall, in the 
hmguage of the Rabbinical schools, judge angels, and 
much more what belongs to the interests of this life, — 
would certainly not have precluded Christianity from 
aiding natural morality and justice with all the forces 
at its disposal. 

Besides, the mind of every Jew who cherished any 
recollection of his nation's glory, its prestige and its 
mission, w^as occupied with the memory of that ancient 
time, when the prophet stood before the king, and, if 
need be, rebuked him for falling away from the cove- 
nant of Israel, and the commandment of God. Paul 
never forgot the greatness of the race from which he 
sprung; never, even when he had been forcibly severed 
from both parts of it, — from the Jews of the old faith, 
for his unpardonable conversion ; fi*om the Jews of the 
Apostolic College, for his equally unpardonable indiffer- 
ence to ritual, — did his tenderness for the ancient 
peo])le of God fail to break forth, did his pride of race 
forsake him. It is not without design that he lays so 
much emphasis on the prophetic office, implying by it 
the function of bearing testimony to the truth of God 
before an unbelieving and demoralized world ; as the 
prophets of old did from the days of Samuel to those 
of Malachi. 



876 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

The Jewish prophet is the representative of the prin- 
ciple, that the forces of government are, and should be 
subordinated to justice, mercy, and conscience; and 
that no office, however high, is, or ought to be out of 
the reach of reproof or correction. Armed with the 
Word of God, the prophet is — as we are told by Jere- 
miah — a defenced city, an iron pillar, and brazen walls 
against king, prince, priest, and people. A high office, 
but one full of danger to him who fills it ; for Jeremiah, 
though constantly the counsellor of king and people, is 
frequently in great peril on account of his far-sighted 
candor, — most of all, at the hands of dishonest rivals, 
w^ho prophesied smooth things, and deceived the people 
with the hopes of safety or impunity. It was in a spirit 
like that of a Hebrew prophet, — a Jeremiah, a Micah, 
or an Amos, — that Paul stood in the presence of Felix, 
and reasoned with him on justice, and self-restraint, 
and a future judgment, till the adventurer and man of 
pleasure trembled before his prisoner. In the same 
manner Paul ai-gued with the younger Agrippa, though 
with less success, since he only extorted from the king 
an ironical compliment. 

It must not, however, be forgotten, that the prophet 
of old addressed such a monarch, a prince, a priest, and 
a people, as — whatever were the short-comings in the 
practice of each — professed allegiance to the law of 
Moses. Even Israel had not really revolted from God ; 
only from David and the worship at Jerusalem. The 
prophet of Israel does not reproach king and people for 
the dissent which reared the chapels in Dan and Bethel, 



ATTITUDE OF THE OLD PROPHETS. 377 

but for the rebellion which led them to worship Baal 
and Ashtaroth in the place of the God of their fathers. 
Here, except during the dynasty of Ahab, there was, 
at least, a nominal acceptance of the national religion ; 
and the prophet — though he incurred frequent risk for 
the boldness of his manner, and, occasionally, for the 
inferences which his denunciations suo;Q;ested — had 
nothing to fear on account of the matter of his speech. 
Elijah, Micaiah, Elisha, are menaced or punished for 
their attitude to the king, not for their religion ; and 
the false prophet, Zedekiah, who urged Ahab to his de- 
struction, employed the common prelude to the pro- 
phetic utterance, — " As the Lord liveth." So, also, 
Jeremiah declares, — " Then the Lord said unto me, the 
prophets prophesy lies in My name ; I sent them not, 
neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto 
them." This hypocrisy did not render these time- 
servers less bitter in their treatment of the true mes- 
senger, but it acknowledged that his mission, like theirs, 
was in the name of the God of Israel, and that he was 
justified in speaking openly before king and priest. 
Had the office of Paul fallen in times like those of the 
Hebrew prophet, he would have dealt as largely with 
the political circumstances of his day as his predecessors 
did, as boldly as he himself spake before Ananias and 
the Sanhedrim. 

The teaching of St. Paul is as precise when he 
touches on the internal life of the Christian. Keenly 
alive to the reality of sin, occasionally using language 
about it which strongly savors of the dualism which 



378 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

was adopted by the stricter Gnostics ; firmly holding 
that the beginning of deliverance is the purchase which 
Christ has made of the enslaved soul by the price of 
His Passion ; the lesson which he reads his disciples is, 
in the highest degree, practical. He would have them 
look perpetually to the law of their mind, their con- 
science, the Spirit of Christ which inhabits them, and to 
gather a rule of life from its guidance. He is perfectly 
plain-spoken about the vices which he condemns, — the 
sensual and selfish practices which he saw everywhere 
about him, and of which he says, that they who permit 
the growth of these habits shall not inherit the kingdom 
of God. "The fruit of the Spirit is love, gladness, 
peace, forbearance, gentleness, kindliness, trust, good 
temper, self-control," he tells us in the Epistle to the 
Galatians. " Put on, then," (he says to the Colossians,) 
'' as elect, holy, beloved of God, hearty compassion, 
gentleness, modesty, good temper, forbearance." He 
has advice to give to husband and mfe, to parent and 
child, to master and servant, to men as members of 
churches, to individuals as engaged in the earnest strug- 
gle of the Christian life. "My exhortation, brethren, 
is," says he in the first of his epistles, " that you re- 
prove the unruly, that you comfort the low-spirited, 
assist the weak, be forbearing to all. Take heed not to 
retaliate evil for evil, but always follow after what is 
good to each other and to all. Be always glad. Pray 
regularly. Give thanks on all occasions, for this is 
God's will in Christ Jesus on your account. Do not 
put out the light of the Spirit. Do not niake scorn of 



CHRISTIANITY AFFIRMS EQUALITY. 379 

teaching. Test every thing, and hold what is worthy. 
Abstain from any kind of evil." Similar lessons of 
moral virtue are given to the Ephesians, — if, as some 
have doubted, the letter which goes under this name 
was intended for the Church of Ephesus, — and are 
scattered up and down every epistle. A holy life, a 
blameless demeanor, a gentle temper, a winning man- 
ner, are the means by which Paul would have every 
man use tlie gift which is bestowed on him, and do his 
part in effecting the perfection of humanity. 

Christianity recognized the corruption, imperfection, 
weakness of man's moral nature, and, withal, saw that 
this infirmity not only impaired the progress of the 
individual, but hindered the development of society. 
It discerned that the regeneration of man was to be 
effected by the sacrifice of man, and it discovered the 
original of this sacrifice in Jesus of Nazareth. These 
two facts constitute tlie basis of this religion. Further- 
more, and by implication, Christianity aflSrmed the 
fundamental equality of all men, equality in the neces- 
sity of an atonement and a mediation, equality in the 
right to both. It acknowledged neither sacerdotal nor 
secular privilege, for its highest officer is a preacher or 
minister. As its advocacy is so lofty a self-abnegation, 
and as obedience to its tenets is so thoroughly spiritual, 
it was, and ever is, absolutely separated from that 
nature-worship, which destroyed the civilization it 
attempted to influence, and which, under one form or 
other of materialism, has survived its earliest manifesta- 
tions. As it was intensely sympathetic, it was driven 



380 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

into antagonism towards that Gnostic particularism 
wliich offered its devotee perfection, by the contempla- 
tion of a wisdom which might be achieved by culture 
and knowledge, but which never sought to regenerate 
or benefit the world. 

It is by means like these which have been recounted, 
that Paul contemplated a general leavening of society 
by the genius of Christianity. He knew — who had 
better personal experience of the fact ? — that a reso- 
lute and wise spirit is certain to attract attention and 
win allegiance. For there is at least this consolation to 
those who, being credited with disinterestedness, seek 
to impress their opinions upon their fellows-men, that 
even though a very moderate amount of freedom may 
be given to those who strive to reform society, the 
effect of every lofty purpose is rendered more intense 
and lasting by reason of its exceeding rarity. Even 
those who are sunk in sloth, sensuality, and selfishness, 
are attracted by the energy which disdains their pleas- 
ures and purposes, and shapes out for itself some novel, 
but beneficent end. The only real resistance which 
earnestness and activity meet, is that of being con- 
fi'onted with an antagonist resolution, which is equally 
persevering and determined. A strong will can be 
withstood only by collision with another will, whose 
weapons have been tempered by the same, or by an 
equally skifful armorer. To such an energy as that of 
Paul there was no antagonism, either in the sluggish- 
ness and ignorance of popular idolatry, or in the subtle 
but nerveless refinements of ancient philosophy. His 



NO SUCCESSOR TO PAUL LIKE HIM. 381 

tenets interpreted, methodized, and modified, perme- 
ated ancient civilization rapidly. But, unhapi)ily, the 
master-builder had no true successor. His mantle fell 
on no one. No Elisha obtained a double share of the 
Christian prophet's spirit. 

No successor of St. Paul, no disciple, no companion 
is known to us as having labored like him, or as having 
written like him. With the exception of Luke, none 
of his associates in the ministry have even been canon- 
ized. There are other compositions of the Apostolic 
Age, which have never, or only temporarily, been 
admitted into the Scriptures of the New Covenant. 
There are others which may have been written by 
those who had heard the apostolic teachings. But 
they are wholly inferior to those relics which Avere col- 
lected and compiled into the volume of the New 
Testament. The schools of the prophets provided a 
succession of teachers from the days of Samuel to those 
of the restoration, and during six centuries the same 
teaching was proclaimed with unabated vigor and spir- 
ituality. But the Scriptures of the New Testament 
are concluded within a brief epoch, and are concluded 
abruptly. One successor of the Apostle — Clement of 
Rome — is a faint reflection from the man of Tarsus, 
speaks neither with his authority nor with his fulness 
and depth. It is not difficult, even if we look at the 
facts from no supernatural point of view, to discover 
why the Church, when it framed its canon, and when it 
had decisively admitted the authority of Paul, treated 
him as eminently inspired; for no teacher of Chris- 



382 PAUL OF TARSUS. 



tianity ever possessed so great a genius, none was ani- 
mated by so intense a religious sense, or enlightened by 
sucb profound sagacity, and endowed with such admi- 
rable tact. 

It will be curious, perhaps instructive, to consider, in 
concluding this estimate of Paul and his times, what 
would have been the consequence had other men, 
equally gifted with the Pharisee of Tarsus, succeeded 
him in the conduct of the Church; and what would 
have been the attitude of such a man as he was, if he 
were to appear among us now, — if, according to the 
fancy which was prevalent among many theorists of his 
age, the spirit of Paul were to re-animate some human 
body, and to guide anew some human will. 

The Christology of Paul might have been progres- 
sive. The epistles of Paul say nothing of the birth or 
childhood of Christ. They assign him no miraculous 
origin ; they speak of Him as merely a descendant of 
the stock of David. The language of these writings 
implies that the perfection of Christ was finally ef- 
fected at His death and resurrection, — that it was 
the recompense of His perfect self-sacrifice. The criti- 
cal passage in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, fi-om 
which it appears that the dignity of Christ was a devel- 
opment, and His ofiice one which would ultimately be 
superseded by the Almighty Father, when its work 
was completed, indicates thr.t Paul had by no means 
attempted that harmony between Tri theism and Mo- 
notheism, which tasked the energies of the Mcene 
Fathers, and which has finally been accepted by the 



SIMPLICITY OF BIS CERISTOLOGT. 383 

general voice of Christendom. Minute and laborious 
search into the epistles proves nothing more than a 
general acquaintance, on the part of Paul, with the 
spirit of Christ's teaching, and gives no idea of his 
having been informed of those details which are found 
in all the gospels, and particularly in the last. He is 
thoj'oughly acquainted with the moral perfection of 
Jesus; he affirms the completeness with which the 
Lord satisfies the Messianic hope, and vindicates His 
claim to being the Founder of the Gospel, and of the 
kingdom of God. He asserts that Christ is not only 
the power of God, and the wisdom of God — ^.e., that 
He satisfies the conditions under which, according to 
Jewish teaching, God is manifest in the flesh, — but that 
He has become to us wisdom from God, justice, purifica- 
tion, redemption. He is the source of all hope and 
strength. But Paul never forgets that while there is 
one Lord Jesus Christ, there is one God. 

Still, it does not follow that, as time passed on, and 
the intense belief in the humanity of Christ, and the 
nearness of Plis second coming grew fainter, Paul might 
not have developed more fully that theory of the na- 
ture of Christ which was first debated by the Gnostics, 
and ultimately settled by the Alexandrian theosophists. 
The Eastern mind was thoroughly impregnated with 
the idea of emanations from God. The Western was 
accustomed to apprehend the incarnation of God in 
man. The union of these two conceptions may have 
been the inevitable consequence of a religion which as* 
signed the most exalted functions to its Founder and 



384 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

its Yictim. As Paul lived, tlie breach between his 
-teaching and Judaism became wider. Thus, had his 
spirit, his wisdom, his quick ap}3reciation of what was 
necessary to the scheme of Christianity, been continued 
in his successors, it is possible that the monotheistic 
tenets which are comprised in his epistles might have 
been modified, or developed even into the Athanasian 
symbol. 

But of this we may be sure. Paul would never have 
mistaken faith for belief — the trust in Christ and God 
for any mental assent to definitions of opinion and 
statements of fict. With him Christianity was in- 
tensely social and personal, and therefore never could 
have become dogmatic and logical. If he had admit- 
ted these formularies of belief, he would have treated 
them as matters of secondary importance, as posi- 
tions which are inevitably and invariably obscure, as 
doubtful disputations, as attempts to know the mind 
of God, which is inscrutable, as imi^erilling that other 
knowledge w^hich man may possess — that of the mind 
of Christ. He would have discouraged any investiga- 
tion, the practical side of which is not manifest, whose 
solution is no aid to the Christian hfe. He would have 
been still more dissatisfied with these inquiries, if he 
found that they w^ere rending the Church into frag- 
ments, — that they were exposing it to the derision of 
the heathen, — that they were preventing that quiet 
and steady leavening of society with a high sense of 
public and private duty, which it was the mission of 
the Chui'ch, in Paul's eyes, to achieve. 



■ NO PERSECUTOR NOR ICONOCLAST. 385 

Again, a man wliose theory of Christianity was so 
earnest and so practical would have discountenanced 
any persecution on the ground of mere opinion. It 
was not to be expected that a Jew would have had any 
respect for the caricatures of God which the heathen 
worshipped, or would fail to connect the depravity of 
the ancient world with that debased idea of the Divin- 
ity which was popularly entertained. The history of 
his own race, and the history of other races proved, or 
seemed to prove, that a fuhe religion and a low moral- 
ity are recij)rocally cause and effect. Paul knew that 
the revolution of the Maccabees was a reaction, as well 
against the tendency to Greek idolatry, as it was against 
that impulse towards Syrian sensuality, which, as is 
plainly enough seen from the book of Sirach, infected 
Jewish manners. Still, Paul contents himself with 
strongly expressing his convictions on the connection 
between a false religion and general immorality. But 
he preaches no crusade against the former. He is no 
iconoclast. He does not counsel his disciples to affront 
the devotions which they witnessed, any more than he 
himself did those of Athens. No one would have 
condemned more strongly, more energetically, thaix he 
would have, the mad fury of Cyril, or have denounced 
more indignantly the murder of Hypatia. There were 
men in his day who erred concerning the faith, — who 
made shipwreck of it ; and Paul, believing that phys- 
ical suffering raises the moral, and purifies the spiritual 
sense, invokes, in the Hebrew phrase of deliverance to 
Satan, some physical evil on them, that they may be 

17 Y 



386 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

chastised into abandoning their profane avowals. But 
he never identified himself with Satan, or with Satan's 
function. 

It is not to be supposed that Paul was indifferent to 
discipline. An ecclesiastical society can no more en- 
dure the presence of notorious offenders against the 
conditions of its moral being, than a civil society can 
neglect to chastise or coerce criminals. But Paul 
counsels the avoidance of such persons rather than 
their formal .exclusion from the Church. Public notice 
must indeed be taken when the scandal is flagrant ; but 
the penitent is to be restored upon submission. He 
could not have countenanced the proceedings of those 
who wished to brand the weakness or timidity of the 
lapsed after the Decian j^ersecution, any more than he 
could have advised the rashness which provoked that 
onslaught. The discipline of an ecclesiastical organi- 
zation, he would have argued, is a means to an end, — 
that end being the approval of the Gospel in the sight 
of men, and the conversion of those whom Christ came 
to save. To avoid the appearance of 'evil, to be scru- 
pulously exact in the fulfilment of human duties, — 
which is as much the law of God as it is of man, — 
ought to be instinctive in every Christian community. 
Hence the avoidance of such persons as compromise 
the reputation of the Christian brotherhood is only an 
act of self-preservation. But discipline is much more 
easily effected by the gentle, sometimes silent, rebukes 
of wise men, or by just public opinion, than it is by 
law and verbal regulations. Paul trusted more to his 



CHURCH AND STATE GOVERNMENT. 387 

own presence for the correction of faults in practice at 
Corinth, than he did to any code of statutes which he 
might draw up. He had to found a church, — not to 
compile a written constitution. The commission which 
he had received, his call to the apostolate, miglit be 
vouchsafed to other men, who might continue his work 
in his spirit. 

He would have been totally indifferent to forms of 
ecclesiastical organization. Various forms of govern- 
ment may equally secure freedom and order both in 
Church and State. What is to be deprecated is that 
fanatical adherence to any form of government under 
which men seek to force their habits on the life of 
others. What is to be learnt from such a fanatical 
adherence, is that individuals are able to seek and find 
their own, not the general or public good, in every form 
of government. We can gather from the Second Epis- 
tle to the Corinthians, that there were men who, within 
that particularly democratic church, huckstered the 
word of God ; for St. Paul's term, which we translate 
"corrupt," alludes as much to the petty manner in 
which the great office of man's redemption was treated, 
as to the adulteration with which these mcQ had dis- 
guised its tenets. The reform of a church government 
may be necessary. Its institution may have been rad- 
ically vicious, its conduct may have stereotyped the 
faults of its origin. But he is a very bad judge of 
human nature, and knows very scantily the history of 
the process by which human nature may be perma- 
nently bettered, who believes that changes in the form 



388 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

of an administration are organic, and therefore may be 
considered final. Least of all is this the case with a 
church, which, to be faithful to that by which it con- 
sists, must depend for its true vitality on moral — can 
hardly, except it be bent on suicide, trust to external 
— forces. In Church and State, that is the healthiest 
condition in which they, who having accepted or al- 
lowed a form of government, and wdio are clearly alive 
to their duties as members of a religious or civil polity, 
are indifferent to the details of the constitution under 
which they live. 

It has been stated above, that Paul discerned in the 
low morality of the age through which he lived, and 
in the degrading conceptions which, as he saw every- 
where, men entertained of God, a reciprocal connec- 
4iion. But unhappily, a neglect of public and private 
duty, an indifference to natural morahty, and a habit of 
low and degrading vice, are not peculiar to heathen- 
dom. Such vices were witnessed during the prophetic 
age. There is, indeed, no reason to beheve that Paul 
was imperfectly acquainted with those parts of the 
Hebrew Scriptures in w^hich the deeds of a corrupt 
society in Judah and Israel are stigmatized and de- 
nounced. The transgressions of the two kingdoms were 
precisely those which have been committed in times^ of 
prosperity and wealth, and even in those of adversity 
and suffering, when men become effeminate and licen- 
tious, insolent and hard-hearted. That the rich should 
oppress the poor, that the strong should prey on the 
weak, that wealth and power should be employed for 



PERPETUAL NEED OF THE REFORMER. 389 

selfish and base ends, for low and coarse pleasures, are 
contingencies to be expected, for they have perpetu- 
ally happened. But the corruption of society consists 
in the applause with which such malversations are 
witnessed, in the acquiescence or congratulation with 
which vice is recognized or commented on. 

There are no grounds on which to infer that human 
nature has been materially changed since the day in 
which Amos testified against the depravity of the Is- 
raelite nobles, and Paul drew his inferences from the 
corruptions of the Roman world, though the Syrian 
kingdom and the military empire have passed away. 
Whatever may be the origin of those personal and 
selfish impulses which debase the man if they are un- 
checked and gratified, they are still the same as in the 
days of the Syrian prophet and the Christian Apostle, 
have the same consequences, need the same remedies. 
It cannot be denied that the world has made vast mate- 
rial, much moral, progress, but the work of maintaining 
the latter, not less than the former, has to be continually 
renewed in each generation of mankind. The labor 
of perpetuating the highest moral law, or, in the lan- 
guage of the New Testament, the kingdom of God and 
His Christ, is even more difficult than that of trans- 
mitting to posterity the conquest which man's intelli- 
gence has made over the material world ; because the 
inductions of science, though arrived at with great 
difficulty and after long research, are communicated 
easily, since they can be easily verified ; while the 
infusion of the divine law into the individual mind 



390 PAUL OF TABS US. 

demands exactly as much pains . now as it did when a 
pure morality and a spiritual religion first asserted 
themselves on behalf of civilization and progress. 

Perhaps, if any well-informed person were asked, 
What are the chief difficulties which a preacher and 
apostle like Paul would meet with were a mission like 
his to recommence at the present day ? he would an- 
swer that they would be found in the attitude in 
which religion and science stand to each other. He 
would say, that there has long been a breach between 
them, and that the breach is gradually widening, that 
their relations are ordinarily those of avowed hostility, 
— at best, of cold and hollow courtesy. He would 
point to the alienation of the inductive sciences from 
theology, to the scepticism with which even the philos- 
ophy of consciousness treats every thing which is supra- 
sensuous. He would observe that there is an active 
and increasing school of thinkers who have assigned 
its distinct place in the history of human thought to 
the supernatural or religious movement; who assert 
that this phase of the human mind has now become an 
exploded fiction, and that it is destined never again to 
influence any high intelligence. He would add, that, 
to the foremost minds of the age, the reign of law had 
commenced ; that this is the philosophy of the definite, 
while the philosophy of the infinite is transcendental 
and unreal. He would conclude that the deference 
which is still paid to religious belief is, on the part of 
those persons, transitional and politic ; that it is partly 
due to the unwillingness with which such men would 



RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 391 

provoke interests which, however indefensible they are, 
are yet powerful, and partly to the fact that they con- 
sider it superfluous to attack that which will one day 
or other collapse by the gradual decay of its founda- 
tions. 

Much of this is apparently true. But no man who 
has ever busied himself* though cursorally and super- 
ficially, with the facts of human life, can fail to see how 
far man is from having arrived at even a moderate 
standard of justice and goodness, even under the most 
fiivorable circumstances. Nor will he fail, also, of dis- 
covering that the prospect there is of elevating the 
moral nature of the individual, and of progressively 
purifying society, does not consist in the development 
of knowledge, or in the control which man has gained 
over the forces of the physical universe. He will see 
that it has been by the self-devotion of earnest and 
patient men that a generation has been purified, and 
that it is by the continuity of these moral 'forces that 
the work, once begun, can be maintained and extended. 
Now, it is not too much to say that no motive except 
the religious sense (by which is understood the prac- 
tice of virtue and holiness, for the sake of a Being who 
is absolutely good and absolutely holy), has ever sup- 
plied the perseverance necessary for this labor 'of bet- 
tering mankind. Every religion must have its martyrs, 
the kind of martyrdom varying with the difficulties 
which have to be overcome. And there is too much 
reason to believe, that much of the hostility which 
exists between science and religion is not due to the 



392 ' PAUL OF TARSUS. 

fact that they are incompatible, but to the manner in 
which the professional advocates of the latter have met 
the inductions of the former. 

In the hands, at least, of a man like Paul, the diffi- 
culty could not be capital. The difference between the 
secularism of the Mosaic system, and the spiritualism 
of the prophetic teaching, is far greater than that be- 
tween the theology of Paul in his epistles, and such 
a harmony as he would try to effect between the deduc- 
tions of modern science and the ftmdamental tenets of 
his gospel. He would have taken the fact of sin, of 
human depravity, of which there is too mournful and 
too general a proof, without troubling himself with its 
origin. He would have made no more stir about the 
cosmogony of Moses than Philo did, and would have 
recognized the hand of God in science as he did in nat- 
ural morality, as he did in the order, as far- as he under- 
stood it, of the physical universe. He would have 
experienced no difficulty in admitting the proofs which 
geology gives of the vast duration of the world. He 
would even have allowed, comparatively speaking, the 
eternity of matter, because he could have induced upon 
it the plastic power of a Divine intelligence, which 
creates by one method of law as much as by any other. 
He would have easily dispossessed his language of those 
phrases which imply a physical heaven ; have discovered 
his new creation in conditions apart from locality ; and 
perhaps have rejoiced in the prospect which science 
offers of the cognition of infinite space and endless 
worlds. 



EIS THEORY OF SALVATION 393 

For, it must be repeated, the characteristics of the 
Pauline gospel are a few facts, none of which contradict 
human experience, and in many particulars obtain its 
support. He holds that man is, and has been, saved by- 
suffering; and that the progress of humanity is due to 
the unbought and unpaid diligence of high and persist- 
ent well-doino^. He affirms that the bejyinnino;, and 
well-nigh the whole of this w^ork was done by One, in 
whom the power and the wisdom of God were immeas- 
urably manifest; and that it is by the Spirit, and in 
the indwelling of this Personage, that the residue of 
man's appointed woi-k is to be completed. How this 
Tv^ork has been done, and must be done, is often ex- 
pounded, and need not be repeated. How the agent is 
aided and consoled is equally affirmed. That the ser- 
vice done to man is paid by the perpetual conscious- 
ness of the benefactor, — or, in other words, that the 
life of such a person is not lost in death, — is a matter 
of natural belief, and of natural justice. The assistance 
which this belief gives towards the construction of 
society, and the aid which it affords to the regenera- 
tion of humanity, is of such profound significance, that 
its importance is well-nigh a test of its truth. And 
over all this system of lofty moral philosophy, and gen- 
tle catholic religion, is the wise, the loving, the benefi- 
cent Father, who claims the homage of His children's 
labor; who has given them for their guidance, their 
safety, their example, their hope, their stay, the object 
of their trust, His first-born Son, their Brother and 
their Lord, — to watch over their work, to aid His 
17* 



394 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

Providence, to be with them always, even to the end. 
Such a gospel is intensely probable, prodigiously strong, 
profoundly consolatory. If it cannot be proved to 
demonstration, it is certain that, were it fully accepted, 
it would work without flaw or slip, and would realize 
the dream of the most sanguine optimist. If Christi- 
anity be not the light of the world, it is because the 
world is still lying in darkness. 

Nor would such an apostle as Paul have had much 
more difficulty in dealing with that other hindrance to 
Christianity, which is derived from the impatient ob- 
jection, that it fails to meet misery, suffeiing, injustice, 
wrong. The answer is instant, — It is no fiult of the 
Christian spirit, it is the fault of those who will not 
accept and obey it. The gospel of Paul is not a com- 
munistic dream, but it is hard work and mercy ; honest 
labor and patience. For no words can surpass in ex- 
haustive force those in which he describes the spirit 
which should animate a Christian society, when — deal- 
ing with the extraordinary gifts which the Christians of 
Corinth had, or believed they had — he tells them and 
us what is the force and what is the working of love. 
It is sufficient to say, that the language rivals that of 
the great Master Himself It is the loftiest poetry, the 
most exalted morality, the purest religion, the most 
consummate wisdom. It is no marvel that Paul, when 
he sums up, in superlative manner, his magnificent 
wishes for the grace and power of his Corinthian breth- 
ren, utters his thanks to God for so indescribable a gift 
as that which he prayed might be the character of all. 



NO FOUNDATION BUT CHRIST. 395 

His heaviest task, beyond doubt, would not have 
lain in the objections which science and misery might 
make to the sufficiency of his teaching, and in the 
answer which he might give to their doubts or to their 
wants, but in the dull, heavy obstacle of that selfish, 
sensual, sordid, self-interest which is the Antichrist of 
the Pauline gospel. But who can trust himself to de- 
scribe it, and why seek to picture that which is, and will 
be, the manifest, the perpetual enemy of mankind ? 

What, then, is the hope of the Divine common- 
wealth? It does not consist in a new revelation, for 
the moral progress of humanity is bound up with the 
principle which forms the foundation of Christ's death, 
of Paul's life, of the life of all who have done true ser- 
vice to mankind. It does not require the promulga- 
tion of a new code, for the tenets of Christian morality 
are rather exhaustive and exact than novel. That 
there is no foundation but Chri&t, — that is, that society 
is constructed on the basis of self-sacrifice, — was dimly, 
but certainly, seen by Plato, who commits the govern- 
ment of his ideal state to men whose life is to be one 
of unceasing toil and self-denial, endured from the pro- 
found conviction that they are developing their own 
highest nature, by spontaneous and diligent service to 
man. But in the Pauline teaching it is asserted, that 
to labor on this foundation is the duty and good of 
every man, — that each can and must contribute his 
share of work to the mighty edifice, and give such work 
as will stand the test of the severest trial to which 
work can be put. This gospel is as new as yesterday. 



896 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

because it is conterminous witli the necessities of hu- 
manity, — because it can and should still exert its 
forces as long as "the perfect man" is inchoate and 
undeveloped. 

To many men, indeed, Christ is not risen. He is still 
in the grave to them ; still garrisoned by the soldiers 
who are set to watch the body ; still a wasted energy — 
.a dead power. For the significance of His resurrection 
is the commencement of His kingdom, — not only to 
each heart that believes in Him, and trusts in Him, and 
seeks communion with Hun, and feels his presence; 
but to the race of man, which is still wrestling, in its 
long agony, with the forces which seek to debase, 
degrade, oppress, misuse it. When the preacher bids 
those who are smitten down by the coarse, hard hand 
of wrong and iniquity, to raise their eyes to Him who 
is lifted up — to open their ears to His Gosj^el, he often 
speaks to dim eyes and deaf ears, — to hearts hardened 
by misery, — to men who say or think, What is this 
Christianity which you preach to us ? how does it deal 
with the toils of our hfe ? how has it influenced those 
who profess to have governed human society by its 
precepts ? He dwells, you tell us, in the midst of his 
worshippers. But His law is as far as ever fi-om being 
the guide of life, — is still treated as Utopian, — is un- 
fulfilled, unacknowledged. If he be the power of God, 
and the wisdom of God, how is it that the power is not 
exercised, the wisdom not obeyed ? What a mockery, 
they say, is this world of Christendom ! what a phrase ! 
what a deception ! It hardly protests against the evils 



CHRISTIANITY AND HUMAN LIFE. 397 

it pretends to cure. To us, Christ is a history, a re- 
mote event, not a present and a living energy. 

The Gospel of Christ, you would tell us, can answer 
every question which bears on the moral nature, the 
hopes, the fears of man, — can remedy every wrong, — 
can heal every wound, — can soothe every sorrow. 
How is it dealing with the problems of human life? 
To what extent does it confront that harsh and grip- 
ing greed which accumulates its own pleasures on the 
misery of thousands, — which divides society into two 
camps, one of which is arrayed against the intolerable 
sorrow of its condition ; the other is anxiously occu- 
pied in disarming the despair which it has created? 
How many, calling themselves by the name of that 
Master who, with such intense pungency of indigna- 
tion, with such bitter irony, exposed and denounced the 
hard hypocrisy of His own age, follow His example in 
speaking after His Spirit to their own? Where is the 
champion of oppressed, of degraded humanity? Who 
seeks to lay bare the ulcers which fester in what men 
glibly call modern civilization, and, laying them bare, is 
prepared to discover and apply their cure ? " The har- 
vest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not 
saved." So said the wise prophet of a nation which 
was then about to enter into the valley of the shadow 
of death. Is Christendom to find no prophet ; is there 
to be no physician for the sorrows of the people — no 
one to set forth Christ plainly as Paul set Him forth ? 

Thus, the chief difficulties which lie in the way of 
those who trust in the force of a revived and restored 



898 PAUL OF TARSUS, 

Christianity do not arise in a discovery of the means 
by which the work should be set about, but in interpret- 
ino^ and combating^ the forces which will resist or with- 
stand it. Debarred by the terms of its origin from any 
appeal to force ; taught by the experience of centuries 
that its great obstacle has been that alliance with secu- 
lar power which captivated and demoralized it in the 
fourth century, the divine commonwealth must not be 
led for an instant to desire a renewal of that ancient 
and disastrous association. The history of Christianity 
has been like that of Samson. It has been seduced 
by the charms of a Delilah, — has been shorn of its 
strength and beauty, — blinded, and set to work in the 
prison-house of political expediency. But though it 
ought to have no recognized understanding with secu- 
lar government, it can exhibit no antagonism to the 
organization of civil authority. If it fulfils its mission 
wisely and efficiently, it will guide and purify the pub- 
lic conscience, and eventually supersede the functions 
of secular authority, by reducing it to a form and 
a routine. Appropriating all the forces of social life, 
and giving them one direction, while recognizing every 
variety of power and function, it can in this way only 
effect the fulfilment of the Apocalyptic vision, — " The 
kingdoms of the visible world are become the kingdoms 
of our Lord, and of His Christ, and He shall reign for 
ever and ever ; " or as the prophet saw it in his ecstasy, 
— " Great is His government, and there is no boundary 
to his peace." 

Such a reconstruction of Christianity, — such a re- 



EECONSTRUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY. 399 

newal of the Pauline church, may have its origin in a 
fusion of sects, or it may commence in a movement 
external to them all. Men are weary of words, and 
turn away from the arid strife of polemical disputants. 
Traditions have ceased to hold a mastery over them. 
Day by day it becomes less easy to renew the ancient 
bitterness of controversy, and to array the facts of 
the Gospel against its spirit. There is less and less 
prospect of effecting a union of some of those who 
profess the name of Christ, against others. There is 
even less power of rousing passion against those who 
stand aloof from acknowledging the name of Christ at 
all, or from confessing His office. But however gentle 
our age may be towards opinion, it is not behind any in 
its admiration for the exact fulfihnent of duty, and in 
the homage which it pays to self-devotion, kindliness 
and love. It neither inquires into the creed of misery, 
nor into that of charity. But it is conspicuous for its 
tenderness towards the former, and for the honor which 
it shows towards the latter. The world in which we 
live has, at least, understood the maxim of Christ, that 
" he who is not against us is on our part." Pity that 
the example is rare. 

The greatest strength, however, which a New Ref- 
ormation will require, lies in the need there is for a 
Religion. What is called civilization in our day, is, 
in many particulars, a failure. It has become a hot and 
bitter struggle for life, in which one may see, on the 
one hand, an ever-increasing wealth, surrounded by 
guarantees and securities of enjoyment, — securities 



400 PAUL OF TARSUS. 

whicTi were accorded in no previous age of the world's 
history, — wealth which is too often, and with coarse 
ostentation, jDaraded with cynical insolence, Avorshipped 
with sordid adulation. And on the other hand, there 
is a vast and growing misery, for which ordinary j^allia- 
tives are inoperative, — for which ordinary explanations 
are superficial and unsatisfactory, — for which no reme- 
dies are found, because few care to discover them, 
fewer still dare, on discovery, to announce them. Must 
we wait till men ask, and in terms of increasing men- 
ace ? — What, then, if the only fruit of those labors to 
which we have given our lives is to increase our own 
misery, to tie us down more firmly to inevitable pri- 
vation, and to swell the opulence which mocks our 
want ? For us, and we are many, society needs recon- 
struction. 

The attitude in which an earnest religion would 
stand to this morbid and dangerous condition, would 
not be that of stupid acquiescence in an inevitable des- 
tiny, but of an active and general determination to dis- 
cover the remedy for that which dishonors and degrades 
mankind. The patience and content which are incul- 
cated by the Christian temper are not indifierence at 
the' result, but the acceptance of a fact, for which there 
must be, and shall be a cure. Individuals may, as 
Paul says of himselt^ " learn to be content, whatever 
be the condition imposed on them." But the corporate 
action of Christian man is one which is the very reverse 
of this passive content. " The struggle," says Paul, 
using his favorite metaphor of the palaestra, "is not 



THE CONTINUAL CONTEST, 401 

with flesh and blood, but with authorities and powers, 
with the world's rulers of this state of darkness which 
prevails in our generation, with the spiritual forces of 
wickedness in heavenly places." It is as though he 
had said, We have no quarrel with human government ; 
we take up no arms to fight against civil authority. 
Our contest is with that godless and blind selfishness, 
which aiTogates to itself the right of associating its 
aims with the destinies of man, and governing the 
course of society, which makes that light which is 
darkness, that sweet which is bitter ; which affects to 
consider the rule of its own conduct as the rule of 
man's existence; which installs itself in the place of 
God, against which — the deadliest foe which humanity 
encounters — it is needful for Christendom to take the 
panoply of God, and to be steadfast in the work which 
it has to do. 



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THE INFINITE AND THE FINITE. By The- 
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" No one can know," says the author, " better than I do, how poor and 
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in the hope that they may suggest to some minds what may expand in 
their minds into a truth, and, germinating there, grow and scatter seed- 
trutli widely abroad. I am sure only of this: The latest revelation ottters 
truths and principles which promise to give to man a knowledge of the 
laws of his being and of his relation to God, — of the relation of the Inhnile 
to the Finite. . . . And therefore I believe that it will gradually, —it may 
be very slowly, so utterly does it oppose man's regenerate nature, —but it 
•will surely, advance in its power and in its influence, until, in its own 
time, it becomes what the sun is in unclouded noon." 

From the ChicaffO Tribune. 
Few writers have obtained a more enviable reputation in this country 
than the author of this little book, and few are more justly entitled to 
consideration. His works upon jurisprudence are to be found in almost 
every public and private law library in the country; while his writings 
upon Christian philosophy and the science of religion are universally re- 
ceived as models of close and logical reasoning by those even who ditier from 
him in the form of their religious belief. . . . Mr. Parsons has been i)ro- 
nounced to be '' the most fascinating interpreter of the writings of Swe- 
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reputation to which he is so justly entitled. The defects of the work arc 
only such as necessarily attach to the subject itself. The finite cannot 
grasp the intinite, but the author has accomplished this: he leads the 
reader through new and pleasant paths of thought into the boundless 
immensity that surrounds us, where the mind, freed frem the idea that the 
only source of spiritual truth is a revelation, the interpretation of which 
is limited to a prescribed class, feels and acknowledges the power of the 
intinite in newer, simpler, and not less holy truths. 

From the New York Evening Post. 
Professor Parsons, in his little work, does not undertake to controvert 
the huge volumes that have been written ui)on the jjliilosophical problem 
of the Intinite and the Absolute: he merely attempts to show us how the 
problem has beun treated by his master, Swedenborg. He has a profound 
veneration for the teachings of that illustrious seer, and his expositions 
of these teachings have the merit of unusual clearness and simplicity. 
. . . Whatever difficulties the reader encounters in his pages are diffi- 
culties inherent in the subjects themselves, and not in his methods of eluci- 
<lati:>n. Any one accustomed to tliink at all ui)on deep religious questions 
will be able to understand what he means, though he may n()t be disposed 
to accept his conclusions. And the inquirer who simply wishes to be in- 
formed of the general scope and puri)oi-t of Swedenborg's remarkable dis- 
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MESSRS. EOBEETS BEOTHERS' PUBLIC ATIOifS. 

RADICAL PROBLEMS. By Rev. C. A. Bartol, 

D.D. One volume, 16mo. Cloth. Price $2. 

Contents: — Open Questions; Individualism; Transcendentalism; 
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Law; Origin; Correlation; Character; Genius: Father Taylor; Expe- 
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From the Liberal Christian. 

What a wonderful, wonderful book is the " Radical Problems." "We are 
not a third through it yet, and Heaven only knows where and how we shall 
find ourselves at the end of the journey. Already are we so shocked, 
stunned, bewildered, edified, delighted, — in short, thorougnly, thoroughly 
bewitched, — that we have no words to express ourselves. . . . That this 
book has a long life before it who can doubt, or that it will cause a grand 
commotion in the theological world? It will be impetuously attacked and 
vehemently defended, but will survive alike the onslauglit of its assailants 
and the intemperate zeal of its defenders ; and will be the fruitful source 
of many a brilliant essay and inspiring discourse and stimulating and 
suggestive club-talk, long, long after its gentle and gifted author has left 
us to receive a most cordial welcome by his brother thinkers in brighter 
spheres. 

From the Commonwealth. 

Spirituality, purity, gentleness, love, child-like simplicity, bless and 
sanctify him; but he is si>irited as well as spiritual. In his gentleness 
there is a quick vivacity, and he sometimes exhibits a keen incisiveness 
as of whetted steel. His aim is not so much to solve as to suggest. He is 
no dogmatist, nor is he an expositor or judge. He finds open questions, 
and delights to leave them open questions still. Meantime he looks into 
them with the eyes of his inmost soul, discerns much, throws out a pro- 
fusion of glancing and irradiating suggestions that open the questions 
farther instead of closing them, then retires to look elsewhere. . . , This 
man carries eternal summer in the eyes, and sees beds of violets in snow- 
banks. His own climate is his world, and he can make no excursions out 
of it. A pleasant world it is, with no deserts, jungles, reeking bogs, foul, 
ravening creatures, and poles heaped with ice. As some will see only with 
the physical eye, so he with the si)iritual only. 

From the Globe. 
It contains seventeen chapters, honestly representing the individual 
spiritual experience of the author, and at the same time indicating some 
of the intellectual tendencies of the time. It is " radical," not in the usual 
sense of the word, but in its true sense, that of attempting to i)ierce to the 
roots of things. INIany of the opinions and ideas exi^ressed in the book may 
be repudiated by the conservative reader, but its spirit and aim cannot 
fail to charm and invigorate him. Dr. Bartol, indeed, is one of those men 
who have religious genius as well as religious faith. . . . The book is a 
l>r()test against popular theology, made from wliat the writer considers 
the standpoint of true and i)ure religion. We have considered it from a 
literary jioint of view, and, tlius considered, its wealth of thought and 
imaginative illustration entitle it to a high rank among the publications 
of the year. 

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From the Lutfieran Observer. 
We do not know how to be^in or wliere to end our commendation of this 
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not afford to do without "Ad Clerum," which is complemental of all the 
rest. 

Fromliev. Geo. W.Eaton, D.D., President of Hamilton Theological Seminanj. 
I have perused it with delighted interest. Though not quite in sym- 
pathy with the flippancy and hyperbolical statements which occur here 
and there in the volume, its instructions are on the whole healthy, i)er- 
tinent, and " put" in a form charming and impressive. I know of no work 
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ROMAN IMPERIALISM, and other Lectures and 
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One volume, 16mo. Uniform with "Ecce Homo." Price 
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From the St. Louis Journal of Education. 
The author of " Ecce Homo " has been pronounced the typical writer 
of the present time. Those who have read his former work — and who has 
not? — will give this a cordial welcome. The Essays entitled "Liberal 
Education in Universities," "English in Schools," and "The Teaching 
of Politics," challenge the attention of educators; while " The Church as a 
Teacher of Morality " will excite some of the fierce criticism that followed 
the i)ublication of " Ecce Homo." 

From the Pacific. 
The Essay in this volume on " English in Schools " we hope will receive 
attention from educators. It is shameful that so little thorough knowledge 
is imparted in our high schools, and even colleges, of our own tongue. INJul- 
titudes of young ladies, accomplished in many other respects, are wofully 
delicient in'this ; while graduates of colleges almost innumerable know more 
of the meaning, derivation, and power of Greek and Latin words and 
phrases than of their own native English. 

By Joel Benton. 
A new book from the pen of the author of " Ecce Homo " is not by any 
means a slight literary work. The memory of that exquisite picture set 
in the clearest crystal of polished thought — a perfection of art and logic — 
lingers as the faint, sweet aroma which recalls a wonderful but dejiartod 
flower. In an age that seeks to analyze and reconstruct our dearest 
traditions, and re-base religion itself, it took, and still holds, a prominent 
place. 

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From the Xeio York Tribune. 
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truth contained in formulas, creeds, and institutions. His faith is wholly 
in reason : he will prove all things, and hold fast only what is good ; but 
his crucibles are various in size and quality, his tests are of many kinds, 
and his reason combines the action of as many intellectual faculties as he 
can bring into play His faith is planted in a tirm but gracious Theism, 
moral like that of Moses, and loving like that of Christ. The belief in a 
divine origin, education, guidance, and discipline of the world, runs through 
his pages; and a conviction of the moral capabilities and of the spiritual 
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Those who do not agree with the book need not be otfended by it; and they 
who do agree with it will be charmed by the beauty in which Avhat they 
regard as truth is converted. 

From the London (Eng.) Enquirer. 
We have been unable to criticise because we tind ourselves throughout 
in entire sympathy and agreement with the writer. AVe cordially commend 
Dr. Hedge's book as the best solution we liave ever seen of the difficult 
problems connected with the primeval Scripture record, and as an admi- 
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work as this is aim st like a new revelation of the divine worth of the 
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AMERICAN RELIGION. By John Weiss. One 

volume, 16mo. Cloth. Price -^1.50. 

From the Philadelphia Press. 

Himself a clergj'man, Mr. "Weiss writes understandingly upon a very 
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print. 

From the Chicago Tribune. 

Mr. Weiss has presented to the public a scheme for an American religion 
which, it is almost needless to say, is a religion of the intellect adapted to 
the highest form of American culture-, and not pervaded to any great degree 
with spirituality, as the term is understood among orthodox believers. 
... If Mr. Weiss had christened his scheme " American Morality," we 
would gladly have hailed his discovery. As it is, we cannot but commend 
its loftiness of purpose. It is a work full of noble thought, and, however 
much the reader may disagree with it from a religious point of view, there 
are very few who can fail to be struck with its purity of aim and its healthy 
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from the scholarly style and the richness of illustration and research it dis- 
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finest and noblest essays ever written by an American, and deserves to be 
read and heeded by every American. 

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The To-Morrow of Death ; 

OR, 

THE FUTURE LIFE ACCORDING 
TO SCIENCE. 

By LOUIS FIGUIER. 
Translated from the French, by S. R. Crocker, i vol. i6mo. I1.75. 



FroTTi the Literary World. 
As its striking, if somewhat sensational title indicates, the book deals with the 
question of the future life, and purports to present " a complete theory of Nature, 
a true philosophy of the Universe." It is based on the ascertained facts of science 
wliich the author marshals in such a multitude, and with such skill, as must com- 
mand the admiration of those who dismiss his theory with a sneer. We doubt if 
the marvels of astronomy have ever had so impressive a presentation in popular 
form as they have here. . . . 

The opening chapters of the book treat of the three elements which compose 
man, — body, soul, and .ife. The first is not destroyed by death, but simply changes 
its form ; the last is a force, like light and heat, — a mere state of bodies ; the soul 
is indestructible and immortal. After death, according to M. Figuier, the soul be- 
comes incarnated in a new body, and makes part of a new being next superior to 
man in the scale of living existences, — the superhuman. This being lives in the 
eiher which surrounds the earth and the other planets, where, endowed with senses 
and faculties like ours, infinitely improved, and many others that we know nothing 
of, he leads a life whose spiritual delights it is impossible for us to imagine. . . . 
Those who enjoy speculations about the future life will find in this book fi-esh and 
pleasant food for their imaginations ; and, to those who delight in the revelations 
of science as to the mysteries that obscure the origin and the destiny of man, these 
pages offer a gallery of novel and really marvellous views. We may, perhaps, ex- 
pi ess our opinion of "The To-Morrow of Death " at once comprehensively and 
concisely, by saying that to every mind that welcomes light on these grave ques- 
tions, from whatever quarter and in whatever shape it may come, regardless of 
precedents and authorities, this work will yield exquisite pleasure. It will shock 
tome readers, and amaze many ; but it will fascinate and impress all. 



!!iold pveryivhere. Mailed, post-paid, hy the Publisher^,, 

ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston 



Messrs. Roberts Brot/iers" Publications* 



^HE GREAT RELIGIOUS BOOKS OF THE DAY. 



E C C E HOMO. 
E C E D E TJ S. 



Although it is now some years since the publication of " Ecce Homo" and 
"Ecce Ueus," the sale of these extraordinary and remarkahle books con-tinues 
quite as large as ever. Some of the ablest and most cultivated minds in the world 
iLvve been devoted to a critical analysis of them. 

The foremost man in England, the Right Honorable W. E. Gladstone, has just 
published a book devoted entirely to a review of '' Ecce Ilomo," in which he uses 
the following language : — 

" To me it appears that each page of the book breathes out, as it proceeds, what 
we may call an air, which giows musical by degrees, and which, becoming more 
distinct even as it swells, takes form, as in due time we find, in the articulate con- 
clusion, ' Surely, this is the Son of God ; surely, this is the King of Heaven.' " 

Of "Ecce Deus," which may be considered the complement of " Ecce Homo," 
there are almost as many admirers, the sale of both books being nearly ahke. 

Both volumes bound uniformly Sold separately. Price of each, $1.60. 

Prof. Ingraham's "Works. 

THE PRINCE OF THE HOUSE OF DAVID j or, Three 

Years in the Holy City. 

THE PILLAR OF FIRE ; or, Israel in Bondage. 

THE THRONE OF DAVID; from the Consecration cf the Shepherd 

of Bethlehem to the Rebellion of Prince Absalom. 

The extraordinary interest evinced in these books, from the date of their pub- 
lication to the present time, has in no wise abated. The demand for them is still 
as large as ever. 

In three volumes, I2mo, cloth, gilt, with illustrations. Sold separately. Price 
of each, $2.00. 

The Heaven Series. 

HEAVEN OUR HOME. We have no Saviour but Jesus, and no Home 

but Heaven. 
MEET FOR HEAVEN. A State of Grace upon Earth the only Prepa- 
ration for a State of Glory in Heaven. 
LIFE IN HEAVEN. There Faith is changed into Sight, and Hope is 

passed into Blissful Fruition. 
F'owi Rev. Samuel L. Tuttle, Assistant Secretary of the American Bible Socitty 
" T wish that every Christian person could have the perusal of these writings. 
I can never be sufficiently thankful to him who wrote them for the service tliat he 
hiis rendered to me and all others. They have giyenfonn and substance to eveiy 
thing revealed in the Scriptures respecting our heavenly home of love, and they 
have d'.me not a little to invest it with the most powerful attractions to my heart. 
Since I hive enjoyed the privilege of following the thought of their author, I have 
felt that there was a reality in all these things which I have never felt before ; and 
I find myself often thanking God for putting it into the heart of a poor worm of 
the dust to spread such glorious representations before our race, all of whom 
stand in need of such a rest." 

In three volumes, 16mo. Sold separately. Price of each, i?! 25. 
M^ed, post-paid, to any address, on receipt of the price b> the publisher* 
10 



